Talk:Water export

Gigantic water export projects

There are vast deserts in all continents (western part of South America, Northern and south western Africa, Middle East in Asia, South eastern part of USA, Australia, etc.) and also water surplus regions nearer to these deserts. It is technically and economically feasible to construct man made fresh water coastal reservoirs / lagoons on the continental shelf of the sea up to 12 meters depth from the coast line to supply fresh water to desert areas from nearby water surplus/high rainfall areas. Excess water from the high rainfall regions will be collected in the man made lagoons at sea level and this fresh water is pumped to irrigate desert lands from the other end of the lengthy man made lagoons. In other words, the proposal is interconnecting rivers with a sea level / sub sea level contour canal (at least five km wide) to facilitate water transfer.

Water can be pumped from the artificial fresh water lagoon throughout the year for meeting agriculture, etc needs. Also these deep sea facing dikes can be used as sea ports for large ships and top surface as coastal road & rail routs. These proposed dikes would be similar to the reclamation of North Sea area called Delta Works in Netherlands. The experience of the Saemangeum Seawall already constructed in South Korea which is 33 km long and with 36 meters average depth, can be utilised for these projects which are lesser challenging projects. This man made lagoon would be hundreds of kilometres in length and broken in to parts and interconnected by under water tunnels/ ducts (nearly 500 meters long) wherever existing ports and famous beach resorts are located. These lagoons are also interconnected to sea via locks for using the lagoon area for shipping, ship breaking, ship building, etc. purposes. The evaporation and seepage water losses from the man made lagoons would be less than the rainfall on the lagoon area.

It is estimated that the construction cost of sea dikes would be of the order of 10 million US$ per kilometre length. The benefits in terms of agriculture production, shipping, road transport, rail transport, etc are enormous and the entire cost would be paid back within a decade. These massive multinational projects would galvanize the stagnating world economy and also create long lasting productive infrastructure. However the negative aspects of these man made lagoons are to be evaluated in detail and proper remedial steps shall be incorporated to minimize the damage to coastal ecosystem by the presence of fresh water lagoon as barrier to the sea.

The following are the few possible projects in each continent:

• Water transfer (refer Talk:Kalpasar Project) from the Sri Lanka and west coast of India to Iran, Pakistan and Arabian Peninsula.
• Hangzhou Bay area in south eastern China can be used for fresh water lagoon to meet fresh water needs for agriculture, city water supply, etc.
• Water transfer from the west central Africa (Congo River basin, etc) to Northern Africa (Sahara desert) and South West Africa (Namibia and South Africa deserts)
• Water transfer from the south east Africa (Zambezi River basin, etc) to North east Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia. Sudan, Egypt, etc).
• Water transfer from the north western part of South America continent (south of Panama Canal) to desert lands of Chile and Peru.
• Water transfer from the Papua New Guinea island (South east Asia) to Northern Australia.
• Water transfer from the northern and southern coastal areas of North American continent to south western region of USA and central parts of Mexico.

The above gigantic projects would cover most of the desert areas of the world except the high lands of central Asian deserts. Thus most of the lands which are not available for cultivation and forestry can be turned in to habitat to copious greenery which would help to mitigate the global warming process.

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