# After three gorges dam..China is going to flood Mongolian desert with sea water.



## Sen (Nov 13, 2004)

UPDATED: 08:27, March 07, 2007
Seawater to be piped to hinterland


A plan to combat the "Big Dry" in Inner Mongolia is under way.

It involves a 600-kilometer pipeline, seawater and a desalination plant.

The Xilin Gol League, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, has proposed a pipe to channel seawater from Huludao, Liaoning Province, to Xilinhot in the league to help combat desertification and support its booming coal mine industry.

You Ren, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region People's Congress confirmed the plan yesterday.

"The whole north area in the country is facing serious water shortage," You said.

Storms blown from the league every spring and autumn dump sand in cities as far away as Beijing and Tianjin.

The Xilin Gol League is the major source of Beijing's sandstorms.

According to the plan, the 600-kilometer pipe, made of toughened glass, will be built at Xingcheng, Huludao, across cities including Chaoyang, Liaoning Province, to Xilinhot.

A desalination plant capable of treating 1 million tons of seawater a day will be built in the Inner Mongolia end.

The region's farming industry is under threat from desertification, where about 60 percent of the earth lacks grass.

Planners have been considering the pipeline for the last two years.

Last October experts and officials lobbied for the plan at discussions held in Beijing.

In January this year, experts from Chinese Society of Oceanography, studied the feasibility of the project and agreed that it met the nation's sustainable development guidelines.

The Xilin Gol League wants some of the water for its brown coal industry, which suffers from a shortage of water needed for production.

But it could still be a while before the plan is implemented, if at all.

A plan in the 1950s to channel water from China's south area to the north is still under construction.

Source: China Daily


http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200703/07/eng20070307_354966.html


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## wigo (Jan 23, 2006)

The title is not precise, it should be "...... China is going to flood Mongolian desert with desalinated sea water"


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## z0rg (Jan 17, 2003)

^^ After reading the title I thought for a moment that they were going to create an inner sea in Mongolia :S


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

Hopefully that can help reduce the sandstorms that blow across Beijing at certain times of the year.


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## ajmstilt (Sep 10, 2006)

What will they do with all the Salt?

this reminds me of the old Egyptian plans to divert part fo the Nile and flood a part of the Desert in the Western part fo that country.... *runs of to refresh memeory*


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## Cunning Linguist (Apr 27, 2006)

Won't this be INCREDIBLY expensive and an INEFFICIENT use of resources?


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## UD2 (Jan 21, 2006)

no really if you consider the damages and delays caused by the same storms every year.

and the fact that desertification is an extremely serious problem in China. This'll seriously hurt the farming industry. 

It'll be expensive, but if it works, it'll solve lots and lots of problems.


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## zergcerebrates (Jan 23, 2004)

ajmstilt said:


> What will they do with all the Salt?
> 
> this reminds me of the old Egyptian plans to divert part fo the Nile and flood a part of the Desert in the Western part fo that country.... *runs of to refresh memeory*


Sale the salt and package them as "Desert Salts" I'm sure it'll be a hit in supermarkets.


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## Frank J. Sprague (Nov 19, 2005)

ajmstilt said:


> What will they do with all the Salt?
> 
> this reminds me of the old Egyptian plans to divert part fo the Nile and flood a part of the Desert in the Western part fo that country.... *runs of to refresh memeory*


Were you thinking of the Qattara Depression by chance, I recall they were planning something back in the seventies?


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## hmmwv (Jul 19, 2006)

I thought desalination is a extremely energy consuming process, they'd have to build a nuclear powerplant to support the facility.


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## samsonyuen (Sep 23, 2003)

I thought the inland sea idea too!


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## UD2 (Jan 21, 2006)

hmmwv said:


> I thought desalination is a extremely energy consuming process, they'd have to build a nuclear powerplant to support the facility.


the place is in the middle of coal mines. That's what the poweplant is going to be powered by.


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## Huhu (Jun 5, 2004)

Wouldn't it be more efficient to desalinate the water beside the sea and then pump fresh water inland? For one thing you wouldn't have to build and maintain a massive glass tunnel.


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## pflo777 (Feb 27, 2003)

reminds me somehow of the atlantropa project.....


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## itsmevishal2k4 (Oct 30, 2006)

werent they planning on damming the Bhramaputra which flows into India and i believe Bangladesh as well

its kinda a big deal to indian farmers hno: 

kinda off topic but yeh water and china :cheers2:


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## Whiteeclipse (Mar 31, 2005)

I believe this project in China is bigger.

South-to-North Water Transfer Project

http://english.people.com.cn/zhuanti/Zhuanti_207.html


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## ahmed007 (Jul 10, 2006)

ajmstilt said:


> What will they do with all the Salt?
> 
> this reminds me of the old Egyptian plans to divert part fo the Nile and flood a part of the Desert in the Western part fo that country.... *runs of to refresh memeory*


Did they give up on it. Wasn't called TOSHKA canal or something bcz thats all they talked aboout when i was in egypt.


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## ames (Aug 10, 2007)

cool.


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## Qtya (Aug 31, 2006)

Post pics...


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## DJZG (Aug 2, 2007)

are there some pictures or imaginations about this project?
600km isn't few meters it would be a loong tube 
somehow i don't think this would work, but i'm just sceptical to see mongolia with lakes


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## Pavlov's Dog (Aug 2, 2007)

If the price of generating solar panel based electircity continues to decrease you could do this in the Sahara as well. It would be a massive endevour but it would solve a couple of issues at once. 

-Reduced sea level(if you can store some of the water in inland seas)

- increased food production both in the newly created agricultural areas and in adjacent areas where blowing sands ruin production

Imagine if you took the $100+ billion the US has spent waging peace in Iraq and spent it on this project instead. It would go a long ways.


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## zergcerebrates (Jan 23, 2004)

I guess with glaciers starting to melt its not a bad idea afterall to pump some water into the desert.


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## Spam King (May 14, 2008)

I love this idea, especially if they built thousands of hectares of seawater greenhouses which not only produce food, but clean water, energy and jobs, but also help stop and reverse desertification. I'd love such a massive project to be built in the US in New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Texas, but also in Africa and other developing nations as somethig like this would be sustainable economic development.


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## UD2 (Jan 21, 2006)

^^

gj for digging up a thread from 2007. !! 

I wonder what's going on with this project.


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## Rebasepoiss (Jan 6, 2007)

ajmstilt said:


> What will they do with all the Salt?


That's a good question. 1 million tonnes of sea water per day = ~30,000 tonnes of salt per day 




Huhu said:


> Wouldn't it be more efficient to desalinate the water beside the sea and then pump fresh water inland? For one thing you wouldn't have to build and maintain a massive glass tunnel.


In that case you'd have to build the desalination plant by the sea and transport all the coal necessary from 600km away.


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## Spam King (May 14, 2008)

It'd be pretty awesome to fill the desert with something like this:










What we have is a large seawater greenhouse in the middle, covered in solar panels to grow food, surrounded by more solar panels which have vegetation growing around them due to the increased humidity and excess fresh water created by the seawater greenhouse. Also a food processing and packing center built in the middle of newly vegetated area creates jobs!



so we have food, fresh water, clean energy, jobs and a stop of desertification!


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

i think China can do it as they are having a well water transfer technology. 

If the project succesful, its will bring a better environment to northen China, but i am wondering that how big will be the pipe? when the project will start? 

which mean all the previous effort to resist desertification is fail?


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## Spam King (May 14, 2008)

khoojyh said:


> i think China can do it as they are having a well water transfer technology.
> 
> If the project succesful, its will bring a better environment to northen China, but i am wondering that how big will be the pipe? when the project will start?
> 
> which mean all the previous effort to resist desertification is fail?


The pipes would have to be quite a large diameter and a few hundred km long, but it can be done. We have pipelines over 1000km length and with high enough pressure there's no problem going up and down terrain. The problem with taking saltwater is the corrosion on metal pipes, but with concrete or rubber pipes (there's a very interesting design by a german company called ImmuG) it can be done.

Also, this doesn't mean that all efforts against the desert have been a fail, but they haven't been as successful as hoped for. Especially the fact that planting forests devastates the ground water levels, which a seawater greenhouse system could help regenerate.


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

Spam king is right, salt water is a problem to the pipe.

this idea is to create another salt lake in inner mongolia or ???

Basically, my understanding is the pipe outlet will be fix, which mean the water will started to accumulate in a same place.


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## Gatis (Sep 22, 2003)

Sounds like a serious interference in natural processes. Would be fun to make environment impact assessment for such a project...

Theoretically also sea water can be pumped there, after some centuries (  ) the humid environment around this "sea" would develop inner river network with large saltwater lake in the middle. Like Caspian Sea.


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## Scba (Nov 20, 2004)

Well, why is it so dry in the first place? Is it natural, a climate shift, or was water already diverted away?


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

Scba said:


> Well, why is it so dry in the first place? Is it natural, a climate shift, or was water already diverted away?


Its natural at the first place, but now attributed mostly to human activities, notably deforestation, overgrazing, and depletion of water resources


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## Kenwen (May 1, 2005)

if this project will work, there will be at least addition of farmland which equal to 1third of the current total farmland, the land in the north west is so flat. And the climate during the summer will cool down slightly as wind blowing from the north west direction brings the hot air of the desert will be solve by the forestation with the water pipe in.

And the most important point is that people who lives in the coast or near the coast can move to newly create greenland, this will ease lots of pressure on the east coast. And millions of jobs will be created by forestation ,agriculture, construction on the newly habbitable land and move of industry towards it. The economic benefit from this project if succeed will be trillions or maybe uncountable.


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## Northern Lotus (Jul 24, 2006)

I am just curious, what kind of vegetation can grow in seawater greenhouse?


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## Luli Pop (Jun 14, 2010)

sea vegetation


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## cees (Jun 25, 2006)

well, the water evaporates, and then they use that water for groing plants. the salty leftovers could be stored, or sold as salt.


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## DarkLoki (May 4, 2008)

A very interesting plant is that would be suited for farming on salt water is Salicornia. You can eat it yourself or feed it to livestock. The plant can also be used for making paper or plywood for construction. And finally it's very oil rich and can be used for making bio-diesel.


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## Spam King (May 14, 2008)

Northern Lotus said:


> I am just curious, what kind of vegetation can grow in seawater greenhouse?


Pretty much anything that can be grown in a regular greenhouse can be grown in a seawater greenhouse. The salt water is transformed into freshwater, so you can grow tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, peppers, broccoli, pretty much anything.


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## sidney_jec (Jun 10, 2005)

zergcerebrates said:


> I guess with glaciers starting to melt its not a bad idea afterall to pump some water into the desert.


:lol:


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