Coachella Valley can learn from the Fergana Valley of Central Asia. Coachella needs to make immediate planning changes in attitude, direction, control and form. The first is to move away from an economic emphasis on agricultural exports and to organically grow for the locals and slow-food practioners. The second is to re- plan valley agriculture putting production back into the lands and hands of the private residents and original native americans. The third is to re-adopt more natural systems, practices and methods with an emphasis on low-tech, manual and low-maintainance solutions for water distribution and conservation, for soil amelioration, for sunshading of public and private lands and for cooling inside buildings. The fourth is to reduce the isolation of residents spaced widely apart by constructing simple linked infill development along major roads. And the fifth is to convert the existing water-guzzling lawns of the golf courses to using only drought-resistant ground cover and plants for the rough and the fairways.
In reality, most of the problems of Coachella Valley would be solved if the entry points were restricted, population was capped, agriculture was handled more cooperatively, landscaped front yards were eliminated and spaces between buildings were filled and linked. But these solutions are probably considered un- American and socialistic, thus the fate of the Coachella Valley is likely to be continued degradation of the ecology, misuse of the soil, and eventual run out of water and electricity black-outs because of competing interests and poor land and building conservation techniques. The Fergana Valley oasis offers to the Coachella Valley oasis important lessons showing densely populated towns and cities co-existing with the natural assets and rhythms that keep the valley lush for all residents and visitors. The linear settlements linking the urban centres are ingeneous solutions to getting maximum productivity from the land, even with a high density of popula- tion, while simultaneously offering efficient public services to the residents themselves. Smallholder farms adjacent to the tree-shaded, evaporation-reduced ditches have fanciful waterwheels that lift water for animal and plant usage into the courtyard farms. The wheels are simple, individual- ized, manual, and hand-constructed from recycled-steel. They are almost maintenance-free. Household water comes from wells (some are artesian) drilled into the aquifer that has naturally filtered it for safe drinking.
The Fergana Valley oasis story is an ancient epic. Man and nature co-exist (excepting the recent pe- riod when soviet-ordered cotton-monoculture and military industrial plants threatened to destroy the balance). The current production techniques keep the soil fertile and the crops lush. Springtime sun melts the high snows that permit an extensive and tight grid of man-made clay-lined water ditches to traverse the valley. Slow seepage from the ditches replenishes the aquifer and keeps the water table high, thus reducing the need for above-ground spraying.
The Fergana Valley oasis is surrounded by the barren Tian Shan (aka Celestial Mountains) and a radiating arm of the Pamir Alay (aka Roof of the World). They divide the great Gobi (Shamo) desert into an eastern desert (Taklimakin Shamo in China) and a western desert (Kyzylkum in Uzbekistan). The Syr-Darya river flows westward through the valley toward the Caspian Sea. By 100 BC the valley was thoroughly settled, protected and productive, connected by the great Silk Road, and rapidly changing with the trade of different goods, ideas, peoples, religions, cultures and conquerors.
The Coachella Valley oasis is surrounded by the northern Sierra de Jaurez and the San Bernardino mountains that separate the Great California desert into a northern desert (Mojave) and a southern desert (Desierto de Altar in Mexico). The Colorado river basin provides water to the valley flowing southward to the Gulf of California. Around 1850 AD a railroad between Los Angeles and Yuma brought outsiders and changed the lives and power of the ancient Cahuilla tribes who had survived and flourished with simple agriculture, high quality tools and crafts, athletic games, florid body painting and large sand art.
An oasis becomes a travel destination or a place to settle, with all of man’s basic needs covered locally. Many oases become sanctuaries for study and contemplation like the Siwa Oasis in Egypt or the Nefta Oasis in Tunisia, giving them a mystical and spiritual reputation. The contrast between barren sand/ rock and hardy natural vegetation, between lush, nutrient-laden vertical fruit and nut groves and colourful horizontal floral and vegetable gardens offers a stunning environment that engages all the senses year-round. Add brilliant daytime sunlight and a clear magnified starry nighttime sky and the result is the closest one can come to being in a sensual and visual heavenly paradise, an earthly garden of eden, a shangri-la….
Deserts are regions in which few forms of life can exist owing to exceptional drought or cold. They are often crossed by great bare-rock mountain masses that split from temperature extremes of hot day and cold night. With help from the wind, the split rocks turn to sand, and the desert expands. An oasis is a fertile tract in the desert. The fertility is due to water found near the surface in the forms of aquifers, springs, percolations and artesian wells within depressions, at tectonic plate fault lines, or along the course of a river – all fed and recharged from the snow melt in the mountains. Man can make oases produce a wide range of crops using water diversion and simple cultivation techniques.
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weather matters: On Site review 21
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