Latin America
Related: About this forumPeru bores through Andes to water desert
Peru bores through Andes to water desert
Published: 8:52AM Friday April 05, 2013 Source: Reuters
Peru's Olmos Valley might be a desert now, with rare rains and rivers that trickle to life for just a few months a year, but a radical engineering solution for water scarcity could soon create an agricultural bonanza here.
Fresh water that now tumbles down the eastern flank of the Andes mountains to the Amazon basin and eventually the Atlantic Ocean will instead move west through the mountains to irrigate this patch of desert on Peru's coast. It will then drain into the Pacific Ocean.
The Herculean project to reverse the flow of water and realise a century-old dream is in many ways the most important water work ever in Peru. It could serve as a blueprint for the kind of construction projects needed to tackle worsening water scarcity.
Call it extreme engineering in the age of global warming.
"All of this will be green," said engineer Giovanni Palacios, looking out over miles of brown shrubbery at a
construction site he oversees for the Brazilian firm Odebrecht.
More:
http://tvnz.co.nz/technology-news/peru-bores-through-andes-water-desert-5395386
Cleita
(75,480 posts)are rich in nitrate, which they make fertilizer from. All it lacks is water. If they can break up the hard packed earth and plant it, it will become a lush garden that could go a long way in feeding the world. All they need is water and determination.
Judi Lynn
(160,545 posts)Cleita
(75,480 posts)Cleita
(75,480 posts)there with lush farms where fresh water could be found from melted snow from the Andes. Many of the English residents in our mining camp compound grew cottage gardens. They said it was great to grow things in and because it was fertile, there was a lack of insects, no need for battling pests, and lots of sunshine. All that was needed was water.
Judi Lynn
(160,545 posts)That would be fascinating to see.
I'll remember what you've said about this actual fertility of the earth waiting to come to life. Astonishing.
Gives the Peruvian project even more reason to watch, knowing you've already seen it can be done.
Thank you.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)I once lived in Chuquicamata, the copper mine, under American control back then which is 16 kilometers north of Calama.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calama,_Chile
I haven't been there since 1958 and am frankly surprised how populated it has become. Back then it was an agrarian village populated by the local indigenous people.
naaman fletcher
(7,362 posts)You have never even been to Latin America
Cleita
(75,480 posts)Latin America includes parts of North America as well. And how would you know if she's been to South America? There is more there than just the Atacama desert, a place most people don't visit unless they have some sort of business there.
Response to Cleita (Reply #14)
naaman fletcher Message deleted by the DU Administrators
Cleita
(75,480 posts)of what she says because what the USA is doing there as a matter of policy is a crime.
naaman fletcher
(7,362 posts)Right about what? (Boarding plane, won't be able to reply for a few hours)
ocpagu
(1,954 posts)Didn't know about this project. Sounds like it's very needed. Thanks for sharing.
naaman fletcher
(7,362 posts)How does this effect the areas that the water used to flow to?
Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts)is fairly plentiful on the eastern side of the Andes so hopefully the effect isn't too ecologically destructive. And if the population needs water, they have to find a source. It rarely rains in Lima and almost never in the areas west of the Andes as you move south. Areq
Cleita
(75,480 posts)However, if we are going through global warming and the ice packs are melting faster than they should, all bets are off.
Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts)permanent ice caps. Not sure how much ice melt contributes to the ecosytem and hydrologic system east of the Andes where they get much more rainfall.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)and there were a few water towers along the roads that used piped water, but it would be a huge engineering project and very expensive. There are rivers, but because of the salt peter in the ground they turn to salt water rivers before they reach the ocean.
Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts).The evidence comes from a remarkable find at the margins of the Quelccaya ice cap in Peru, the worlds largest tropical ice sheet. Rapid melting there in the modern era is uncovering plants that were locked in a deep freeze when the glacier advanced many thousands of years ago.
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Several years ago, the team reported on plants that had been exposed near a meltwater lake. Chemical analysis showed them to be about 4,700 years old, proving that the ice cap had reached its smallest extent in nearly five millenniums.
In the new research, a thousand feet of additional melting has exposed plants that laboratory analysis shows to be about 6,300 years old. The simplest interpretation, Dr. Thompson said, is that ice that accumulated over approximately 1,600 years melted back in no more than 25 years.
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Throughout the Andes, glaciers are now melting so rapidly that scientists have grown deeply concerned about water supplies for the people living there. Glacial meltwater is essential for helping Andean communities get through the dry season.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)eco-system in that part of the world and the earth at large. If all that fresh water melts into the ocean, it will become salt water and not good for people and animals to drink.