oasis strategies palm springs or the silk road?
infrastructure | desert agriculture by gerry forseth
desert farming sustainability land traditions
An examination of oasis valleys in two great deserts of the world yields important life and design lessons about man’s growth and development within an isolated perfect climate and a lush environment. One is the Coachella Valley oasis in southeast California with its symbolic and sybaritic oasis town known as Palm Springs, formerly settled over 2 000 years ago by clans of the Cahuilla tribe who spoke an Uto-Aztecan language. I have frequently travelled this valley over a span of thirty years. It is familiar to most of us in North America due to our absorption of it as pop culture. The other is the Fergana Valley oasis in east Uzbekistan on a major arm of the Silk Road in Central Asia, with its mythic and extant ancient oasis cities of Andijan and Marghelan, formerly settled over 5 000 years ago by Indo-Iranians who spoke an Indo-European dialect. This valley was been hidden from the world by the Soviets until recently. In Spring 2008 I toured the Fergana Valley oasis and was able to make comparative observations. The Coachella Valley oasis in southeast California is a small enough stage for its joys and sorrows to be presented with reasonable clarity. Its story involves weather, climate, topography, geology, aquifer, fauna, flora, agriculture, aboriginals, settlers, vacationers, town and country planning and built-form. It’s known for a near-constant warm and dry climate that naturally attracts holidayers and snowbirds. It includes a flaming landscape with a textural tapestry of colours that change from purples and yellows in Spring to grey-green (cacti and tamarisk) in Summer. It is ringed by plenty of cool remote canyons that shelter pools, odd-shaped boulders and palm groves. It has thousands of acres of fertile soil, yielding year-round fruits (figs, plums, mangos), vegetables, grains and livestock feed. And it has residents whose architects are motivated to create iconic but isolated private modern houses that successfully interpret a leisure life-style, the specific setting and the weather. While this suggests a valley of perfect luxurious liveablility, all is not well in this paradise! The valley has a population that has become mainly users and consumers, not producers. The residents and guests are trampling over the fragile environment, they are shitting on and fouling a scattered and wide-spread area, they are maxing-out the water resources and lowering the ground water table, and they
are relying on increasing electrical power to cool their interiors. Powerful interest groups have constructed expensive underground pipelines and wide concrete-lined canals that siphon off vast amounts of water from the Colorado River that then require electrical pumps to lift and spray the water onto exclusive golf resorts that, in themselves, compete with the water needs of the garden and grove agribusinesses. They are over-watering using unmetered irrigation systems which produce run-off water that leaches minerals from the soil and results in a poisonous salt water lake (aka the Salton Sea). Gigantic impersonal corporations control the land and production, the garden, orchard and livestock operations and also the land-hungry spa, recreation, hospitality, holiday, entertainment and shopping facilities. Large hierarchical agencies control vast and spread-out systems for domestic water, electricity, filtering, pumping, lifting, irrigating, insect spraying and fertilising. Building owners over-cool their interiors. Materials for screens that provide shade and catch the cool breezes are imported from elsewhere. Lastly, the ancient tribes of the valley, are inadequately featured by their archaeological and anthropological sites, their traditional objects and stories (bird songs) . The oasis valley feels like it is only 60 years old and dependent on high cost technology and new infrastructure for survival.
The 122-mile concrete-lined Coachella canal is one of many that diverts nearly all the water from the Colorado River into the valley.
left: Imported manufactured screens of concrete attempt to shade the sun and capture breezes in Palm Springs. This golf course green is one on more than 200 luxurious courses that requires vast quantities of water and labour-intensity to maintain the lush settings.
above, middle: Hundreds of wind turbines in Windy Valley north of Palm Springs provide electricity needed to operate air- conditioners and water pumps of sumptuous spas and resorts.
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On Site review 21: stormy weather
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