Plans for Arid Lands

Zafar Adeel thinks outside the box when it comes to the world’s arid places. He’s the director of the UN University’s International Network on Water, Environment and Health. With the results of his four-year study, he outlines new ideas for survival in areas where it’s predicted that water supplies will be severely strained. This is important because these areas are home to nearly a third of the world’s population. His point is that with a shift in practices, there are ways to maximize even scant water supplies. For example, the study points to a project in Pakistan called “arid aquaculture,” which uses existing salty water to create fish farms that successfully sustain local residents. Conventional agriculture can use up to 90 percent of available water, but this project yielded more protein than using that same amount of water to irrigate fields. Similarly, a project in Inner Mongolia found a replacement for cattle herding. Instead of putting grasslands into cattle meat, they decided it was better to put it into chicken meat.