You say the red area would be the reservoir, but imply that that would also be reclaimed into usable land?
no it would not be turned into usable land, because the freshwater resource is more valuable, the location is strategic, and the amount of land gained would not be much. It would be used as a "river". The huge amount of rainwater (one of the rainiest in the world) along with brahmaputra river water, can be piped into desert regions.
no land reclamation with this one. But if China/other countries can cooperate and build expertise building something like this, perhaps in the future they can make stuff like this happen
Although, are we really capable of moving enough water that distance to make a dent in a literal desert
more than you think
I did the calculations: to move the amount of groundwater present in continental US (30k cubic miles), you would need to run a Mississippi river for 200 years
The Taklamakan desert is the size of Germany
Germany is 4% of the US surface area
Mississippi moves 1.5 billion m3/day
Total desalination world wide purifies 95 million m3/day
global total desalination (half of which is literally just Saudi Arabia) is already 7% of the Mississippi River. (and
We need 4% of the Mississippi River to green the Taklamakan over the span of 200 years.
Saudi Arabia moves around 3.5% of the Missippi River alone, lol.
This is very greenpilling. It's not the desalination of the water that's the point here, but rather the sheer MOVEMENT of water. There is tons of other stuff (oil, gas, other water, other fluids) that are moved in huge quantities annually.
More Missippis = more fasterer = you don't have to wait a century
The Bengal Dam reservoir actually generates more water than the Mississippi, 200 cubic miles/year instead of 150/year.
So if China could build a trench that transports that water, the Taklamakan would turn into lush, green Germany in 6 years. If you split the water 3 ways between India/Pakistan/China, then 18 years.
Feasibility of building that trench, which basically would be an artificial river: I don't know. I intuitively feel that it's doable, and I feel that the rewards at hand would more than justify any financial sacrifice taken. We're talking about a country that has reclaimed from the sea, over 2 Puerto Rico's worth of land since 1950--I feel like they can definitely build a river from Bangladesh to the Tarim Basin.
Geography would be rough, because it has to go through the Tibetan plateau. But Chinese labor built the California railroads, it definitely feels well within the realm of possibility.
Belt and road --> Belt and River, it has to happen
If the land is reclaimed wouldn't that mess up a ton of stuff; making port cities landlocked and providing a ton of land that would be (starting out) as useless sand and dirt with no vegetation? Like an asian atlantropa project is what I'm imagining essentially; the bay of Bengal I know they have a ton of issues with water coming up so being able to control the water level would be great but actually reclaiming the land like down in malaysia would be a bad idea, no?
Bengal project is totally different from the Sundaland project. Sundaland would only be feasible in a century-scale timeline, with basically total Asian unity and complete Asian dominance (and US going home) over the Chinese seas and Singapore strait.
Bengal project is what I'm projecting about doing right now, because you kind of also need to in order to prevent a 300 million-strong refugee crisis. The Bengal project is just too good to pass up, it solves desertification, it solves flooding, and it potentially solves India-China rivalries (if done properly)
But in reference to the "Reviving Sundaland" that I want to eventually happen, yea it would obviously render port cities useless. But you also double or triple your land area. Idk seems like a stellar deal still
no it would not be turned into usable land, because the freshwater resource is more valuable, the location is strategic, and the amount of land gained would not be much. It would be used as a "river". The huge amount of rainwater (one of the rainiest in the world) along with brahmaputra river water, can be piped into desert regions.
no land reclamation with this one. But if China/other countries can cooperate and build expertise building something like this, perhaps in the future they can make stuff like this happen
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more than you think
I did the calculations: to move the amount of groundwater present in continental US (30k cubic miles), you would need to run a Mississippi river for 200 years
The Taklamakan desert is the size of Germany
Germany is 4% of the US surface area
Mississippi moves 1.5 billion m3/day
Total desalination world wide purifies 95 million m3/day
global total desalination (half of which is literally just Saudi Arabia) is already 7% of the Mississippi River. (and We need 4% of the Mississippi River to green the Taklamakan over the span of 200 years.
Saudi Arabia moves around 3.5% of the Missippi River alone, lol.
This is very greenpilling. It's not the desalination of the water that's the point here, but rather the sheer MOVEMENT of water. There is tons of other stuff (oil, gas, other water, other fluids) that are moved in huge quantities annually.
More Missippis = more fasterer = you don't have to wait a century
The Bengal Dam reservoir actually generates more water than the Mississippi, 200 cubic miles/year instead of 150/year.
So if China could build a trench that transports that water, the Taklamakan would turn into lush, green Germany in 6 years. If you split the water 3 ways between India/Pakistan/China, then 18 years.
Feasibility of building that trench, which basically would be an artificial river: I don't know. I intuitively feel that it's doable, and I feel that the rewards at hand would more than justify any financial sacrifice taken. We're talking about a country that has reclaimed from the sea, over 2 Puerto Rico's worth of land since 1950--I feel like they can definitely build a river from Bangladesh to the Tarim Basin.
deleted by creator
Geography would be rough, because it has to go through the Tibetan plateau. But Chinese labor built the California railroads, it definitely feels well within the realm of possibility.
Belt and road --> Belt and River, it has to happen
If the land is reclaimed wouldn't that mess up a ton of stuff; making port cities landlocked and providing a ton of land that would be (starting out) as useless sand and dirt with no vegetation? Like an asian atlantropa project is what I'm imagining essentially; the bay of Bengal I know they have a ton of issues with water coming up so being able to control the water level would be great but actually reclaiming the land like down in malaysia would be a bad idea, no?
Anyway subscribe to Belt and River facts
Bengal project is totally different from the Sundaland project. Sundaland would only be feasible in a century-scale timeline, with basically total Asian unity and complete Asian dominance (and US going home) over the Chinese seas and Singapore strait.
Bengal project is what I'm projecting about doing right now, because you kind of also need to in order to prevent a 300 million-strong refugee crisis. The Bengal project is just too good to pass up, it solves desertification, it solves flooding, and it potentially solves India-China rivalries (if done properly)
But in reference to the "Reviving Sundaland" that I want to eventually happen, yea it would obviously render port cities useless. But you also double or triple your land area. Idk seems like a stellar deal still