In a corner of his sprawling farm, Milouda Mohammed proudly unveiled his latest venture - a pond full of catfish that could herald a new future for farmers like him on the Sahara desert. He is hoping to earn extra income from selling fresh, farmed fish from the world's largest …
In a corner of his sprawling farm, Milouda Mohammed proudly unveiled his latest venture - a pond full of catfish that could herald a new future for farmers like him on the Sahara desert. He is hoping to earn extra income from selling fresh, farmed fish from the world's largest …
The emission of greenhouse gases by human activity is set to lead to drought, rising sea levels and flooding in many parts of the world. But in Africa's Sahel region, at the southern edge of the Sahara desert, there could be an upside. The Sahel is the transition region between …
There is great uncertainty over the timing and magnitude of the termination of the African Humid Period (AHP). Spanning from the early to middle Holocene, the AHP was a period of enhanced moisture over most of northern and eastern Africa. However, beginning 8000 years ago the moisture balance shifted due …
Foresters, geographers and ecologists have some good news. Although human population growth between 1992 and 2009 was 23 per cent, and the global economy grew by 153 per cent, the devastation to habitats, ecosystems and wilderness increased by only 9 per cent. But this single ray of good cheer is …
Britain’s most serious air pollution event in the past 10 years was only partly caused by “natural” dust blowing in from the Sahara desert and mostly came from farmers fertilising their fields and industrial emissions from mainland Europe, a scientific paper has concluded. The event, which lasted nearly two weeks …
The arid expanses of the Sahara desert could be transformed within a decade, according to French architecture company OXO. The Parisian firm has proposed building a futuristic mixed-use tower in the world's biggest desert. The tower's design is based on renewable resources like rainwater collection, solar power and geothermal energy …
Phosphorus (P) is one of the most important limiting nutrients for the growth of oceanic phytoplankton and terrestrial ecosystems, which in turn contributes to CO2 sequestration. The solid-phase speciation of P will influence its solubility and hence its availability to such ecosystems. This study reports on the results of X-ray …
It is widely believed that the Sahara desert is no more than ~2–3 million years (Myr) old, with geological evidence showing a remarkable aridification of north Africa at the onset of the Quaternary ice ages. Before that time, north African aridity was mainly controlled by the African summer monsoon (ASM), …
The world's largest tropical desert, the Sahara, has suffered a catastrophic collapse of its wildlife populations, a new study has warned. The study assessed 14 desert species and found that a shocking half of those are regionally extinct or confined to one percent or less of their historical range. Led …
The world's largest tropical desert, the Sahara, has suffered a catastrophic collapse of its wildlife populations, a new study has warned. The study assessed 14 desert species and found that a shocking half of those are regionally extinct or confined to one percent or less of their historical range. Led …
Dimming prospects for solar energy have caught up with a massive renewable-energy project planned for the Sahara Desert. By 2050, according to its backers, DESERTEC, a network of solar plants and other renewable sources scattered across North Africa and the Middle East, could generate more than 125 gigawatts of power …
Surveying women and children from refugee camps in Algeria, Carlos Grijalva-Eternod and colleagues find high rates of obesity among women as well as many undernourished children, and that almost a quarter of households are affected by both undernutrition and obesity.
India's 1600-km long Western Ghats mountain chain, which has forests older than the Himalaya mountains, has been added to list of world heritage sites by the United Nations. The Western Ghats mountain chain is recognised as one of the world's eight "hottest hotspots" of biological diversity. The chain's forests, which …
Washington: The sandy dunes may have made the Sahara a desolate desert now, but about 7,000 years ago, it was full of greenery that hosted early African dairy farms, according to a new research. A team from University of Bristol, who analysed fossilized bones and colourful rock art discovered there, …
Huge reserves of underground water in some of the driest parts of Africa could provide a buffer against the effects of climate change for years to come, scientists said on Friday. Researchers from the British Geological Survey and University College London have for the first time mapped the aquifers, or …
Scientists inspired by a camel's nostrils are set to achieve the impossible and grow aman-made forest in the Sahara Desert. The £3.3 million giant open-air greenhouse in Qatar will bring plant life to one of the most inhospitable spots on earth and it is all thanks to the humped mammal's …
We show in climate model experiments that large-scale afforestation in northern mid-latitudes warms the Northern Hemisphere and alters global circulation patterns. An expansion of dark forests increases the absorption of solar energy and increases surface temperature, particularly in regions where the land surface is unable to compensate with latent heat …
US $1 TRILLION WORTH OF MINERALS Afghanistan is suddenly richThe Pentagon recently announced that Afghanistan is sitting on mineral wealth worth US $1 trillion—about 1,000 times the government’s annual revenue. The untapped mineral deposits, including iron, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium, a key raw material for laptop, cell phone and …
Emissions of African dust increased sharply in the early 1970s, but the human contribution to land degradation and dust mobilization remains poorly understood. Now, a 3,200-year record of dust deposition off northwest Africa has been constructed. On the basis of this dust record and a proxy record for West African …
