Across the world, there are dried-up lakes that we could refill by building pipelines connecting them to the oceans. The Dead Sea and Death Valley are examples. Since the dried up lakes are below sea level, gravity would move the water through the pipelines and no pumps would be needed. We could even put hydroelectric turbines in the pipelines to generate electricity from the flow.
Once refilled with water, the dead lakes could support life along their shores. Their filling would also slightly decrease sea levels, partly mitigating one effect of global warming.
The dead lakes are all barren deserts with almost no life, so flooding them would not cause any ecological damage. If anything, it would help the environment since plants and animals would have new places to live.
This webpage explores the idea in depth, and looks at specific locations where seaflooding could be done.
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo ... eaflooding
Seaflooding: The plan to refill dead lakes
- funkervogt
- Posts: 1187
- Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 3:03 pm
Re: Seaflooding: The plan to refill dead lakes
I've been a fan of creating "artificial" seas ever since I heard the idea. Hopefully it's something we try at some point as it's such an energy efficient form of geoengineering we could easily do.
Re: Seaflooding: The plan to refill dead lakes
In the soviet times there was a plan to reverse the flow of rivers of Siberia to central asia. This probably would refill the Aral Sea and create new seas as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal