The Canal that Accidentally Grew a Forest in the Arizona Desert

Build solar panels over it to prevent evaporation.

Going to cover the canal with solar panels

Mesquite, while great for dry desert locations, many variations are a bit territorial towards other plants that might compete with it. Many Mesquite trees give off a salt along it's growth/branches and this deters many types of plants from thriving.

In a few years it will all go away when the Colorado dries up. Told my sister-in-law to rent and not buy in AZ..

There's nothing good about Arizona not one damn thing.

Very cool and interesting about the environmental and biological considerations, as well as the precipitations/topographic visualisation.

Soo.... if I get it right, this video is about how to USA redirect one river destroying the ecosistem at the river mouth and leaving a large area of Mexico without water supply?

Is Mexico ok about this?

Redirection of the Colorado River that no longer irrigates Mexico. What happened then with Mexico?

never knew about these swale things. nice. very informative. thank you.

Well done America, you destroyed nature again

I'm not looking at a real forest, but it's like a Caatinga/Sertão.

Arizona had a cotton industry long before that ditch was done.

The contour swale technique that is employed in some desert projects.

The "big water story" (scandal) in the AZ desert is the Saudi alfalfa farms that drain the aquifer dry, ship the hay to Saudi Arabia. Politicians (corruption?) let it happen.

"...with its green lawns and green grasses..." ? Lawns are grass. Write a script. Remove redundancy. It will make the presentation concise, correct, quicker to watch, thereby saving us time.

This is how you would transfer km of sand really fast from long distance or in pipes for mining and to desand a desert.

The other crazy thing is with a 40x40 tap you can create almost 20,000 gallons of water storage. Nobody collects water and we all flush piss and shit with clean water.... Change those 2 things and see how more water we all will have... We wont know what to do with all the water if we train people to collect water and stop using it to flush poop.

The gulf was flushed every season by the Colorado River and cleaned every year. Now look what's happening to the gulf!

Save a few million gallons of evaporated water by bridging solar panels over the canal?

We love these stories. What we could do as responsible stewards of this planet. Imagine!

Thumbs down for obsolete units. Use metric units.

The alfalfa is being grown by and exported back to Saudi Arabia to feed their cattle. Literally shipping our precious Colorado river water overseas while destroying our environment

Misleading title, I don't see anything that is accidentally. It's obviously that the whole project is designed & built by a team of professional on purpose.

Why not plant fruit tree's feed people for free

Add more trees in the area. Use drip irrigation to grow these trees very well... I'll keep the area cool in the years to come...

This is why the US has drought conditions. This is the worst way to transport water. If this was a free winding river with varying height it would replenish aquifers and supply the land to become green. The greenery in tin covers the river and provides shade, this reduces the evaporation rate. This is an example of what not to do with your precious water.

so they are stocking the water underground and in lakes ??? whats mindblowing is that you dont mention the problem it's creating for mexicans ...

redirecting all that water into the desert... i bet it is desertyfying other areas.And it is not really getting rid of arizona desert.When the other place gets completely desertified water wil ljust dry out everywhere - is what im thinking.

It sounds like this guy things growing alfalfa in the desert is a good reason to destroy the Colorado river. Frankly, the whole state of Arizona is a sustainability mess.

...You're 50?!

I used to do construction testing in AZ, and I routinely drove to these canals to continue testing the soil and concrete processes used to make these things. It's an incredible project to continually build these things, and I have spent many hours driving my truck or walking wheelbarrows of concrete into these things.

Should cover the canal with solar panels and significantly reduce evaporation.

Loss of water due to evaporation actually isn't all that bad. It does still temporarily accumulate in the local atmosphere.

Too bad it was inadvertent, or they could have planned Cherries and apples, since it is artificially watered, why go native?

We in india did the same , we have built indira nagar canal in our rajasthan state which has significantly the state agricultural area

What they don't tell you is that places like this takeaway ground water that other near by plants would use...

Most neighborhoods in Arizona don't have green grass...

Who else had to play the video at 1.25x speed cus he was talking too slow

Excellent video sir. Seniors and educated elders to be respected, as they are paving way and means to the coming generation. Thanks.

I have lived in the Phoenix area my whole life and never thought anything of the canal! How silly of our education systems to leave out the importance of water in our lives! 💦

I love how he mentions how California uses the water but not how ( I won't mention who ) uses it to grow Alfalfa... and they're another country who just rents the land and uses the water.🤦‍♀️

Perhaps We should put a secant cutoff wall Along roads and highways that intersect with drainage planes similarly... With public Access to fruitful trees and Plants which produce edible products... Realize That another area will be deprived Of its natural water input

Mollison and millison

If only they pumped this in from the ocean instead of a river.

Let the sun heat distill it for you.

If you want to get some table salt and potash and magnesium from that evaporation, even better.

Colorado River doesn't even get to Mexico. Shame on this filthy god-ridden country.

Forests haha. Thats scrub brush