New “Great Wall” of Sand Could Protect Two Billion People

The "desertification" of the Sahara plains has the potential to displace more than two billion people in the years to come. But one architect has a plan to stop it: building a giant wall of sand.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on July 26 2009

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The Sahara Desert stretches on for 3.5 million square miles, almost as large as the entire continental United States—but, thanks to shifting sand dunes, scientists say that the desert wasteland has the potential to grow far, far bigger.

That would spell bad news for an entire third of the world’s population in adjacent areas including sub-Saharan Africa, China, and central Asian countries, which would eventually be displaced by the sand’s migration into their land, destroying farmland and other habitats.

The threat of global warming’s on everyone’s radar these days, but the sand migration, known as “desertification,” has the problem to become an even more monumental problem. According to a 2007 UN report, the issue is “the greatest environmental challenge of our times.”
“It affects about 140 countries,” architect Magnus Larsson told BBC News. If desertification causes all of these inhabitants to evacuate, it could spell disaster for the planet.

But Larsson has a plan: at this year’s TED Conference, he spoke of his vision of creating a “Great Wall” built out of sand, which would prevent the desert from spreading. To keep the wall from blowing down, it would be sealed with Bacilius pasteuri, a type of bacteria found naturally in wetlands.

“It is a microorganism which chemically produces calcite - a kind of natural cement,” said Larsson.

Such a wall would take many years to plan and build, but Larsson is hopeful that his life-saving idea will have legs.

“It’s a beginning, it’s a vision; if nothing else I would like this scheme to initiate a discussion,” he said.

Filed under: General Interest, Green,

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