Deserts ‘breathe’ water vapor, study shows
news.cornell.edu
news.cornell.edu
Basically there are some concepts around atmospheric river 'heart pumps' associated with forests, evapotranspiration and it's role in the 'small water cycle', how moisture can 'hop' from coast further inland (or not), and how urbanization & modern agriculture has impacted water (urban heat dome effect, water drainage, etc.). There's probably some interesting opportunities/research in seeing this better.
For carbon capture, it is much easier to densify regions with already suitable conditions than trying to plant a few trees in inhospitable regions.
Food is a solved problem in the modern era. High cost agriculture is unsustainable in a global market. If non-mechanized farmers in highly arable places (India) are being priced out, then what hope does harsh desert agriculture have ?
Given other 'low hanging fruit' solutions, is the opportunity cost of pursuing such a solution too high ?
Solved problem? We've hardly even identified the actual problem.
As it it stands now farming is an open loop system and input supplies are becoming constrained and expensive. We have killed our soils and the dirt that is left behind requires external inputs to produce current crop numbers.
In addition to this, we grow a large portion of our food in the United States in areas with active droughts and impending water shortages.
Fortunately there are better ways to do things, I just don't know that we can change fast enough.
To address the greater point of your comment though, I agree.
Which is not me saying it is good or bad.
Just me saying ‘it is.’
With the point being it is worth deciding if there is a baby in the bath water. Or irrigation canal so to speak before deciding which moral high ground is rocky and which is silty.
It's "solved" if you can produce synthetic fertilizers from fossil fuels indefinitely.
Not that we should be continuing current farming practises as they're incredibly destructive in many other ways.
It makes sense to plant trees where they will make the most good, not where it is the easiest. Otherwise you propose to look for the keys under the lamp and not in the dark alley where they fell.
That said, planting trees the wrong place could be counterproductive as well.
So for example if something like a large cat was normally hunting these goats it is very possible humans would have been threatened by the presence of the cats (or been annoyed that the cats were killing domesticated animals) and then hunted those to extinction. Very common throughout human history.
The thinker the dry layer the more "insulating" it is from a water diffusion standpoint. It's kind of like lake ice. The thicker it gets the slower it gets thicker.
https://www.prb.org/resources/africas-struggle-with-desertif...
There was nothing about feces in the intro.