[fredrikholm]

On your last point:

This process can be sped up via intelligent afforestation (Miyawaki, permaculture etc).

Heavy mulching combined with densely planted native plants of different heights (everything from understory to canopy layer) effectively traps enough moisture and introduces a wide enough variety of microbes to sufficiently kick start a positive spiral mimicking virgin forests.

This requires manual input of water and mulching for the first two years or so. After that point you have a self sufficient, dense forest that rivals natural ones.

Combined with water harvesting (swales, check dams, man made ponds) this has been proven very effective in dry parts India, China, Northern Africa and Australia.

[greenie_beans]

Just learned about Mikyawaki. This is why I look at the comments. Thanks.

[Darmody]

I didn't know that. I'll look more into it, thanks.

[fredrikholm]

A great start is the Paani foundation; they move thousands of villages from water tank dependency to self-sufficiency in their annual competition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8nqnOcoLqE

[Darmody]

That's pretty cool.

Now I wonder. With an efficient water desalinization how long would it take us to turn arid zones into complete oasis?

That would be massively helpful against global warming.