Devin Lavign wrote:I can see why you liked that spot with the larger view of the area. Indeed water is precious and so needed to succeed. That fan is a good area to try and locate near.
I really admire your goal, it is great to hear that you want to help the local community with your project.
I am sure you will get a lot of good advice here on this site. Some a lot more knowledgeable than me. I will do my best to give what answers I can though.
What I can tell you about your questions.
Both the toxins and the salt issue and distances is really tough to say for sure without knowledge of how deep the water table is, what the geology is, and other variables.
About salt. I live inland but grew up near the coast in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. We have a lot of farms that actually get very close to salt water without much problem. But it is also a temperate rainforest there. So a lot of fresh water running through the land that likely helps keep pressure on the salt water and keeps it out of the soil. In your area there, this likely is not be happening since water is so much less.
I would look less at distance and more elevation from the sea level. Looking for more than root depth of the trees you wish to plant above the level of high tide at sea level. I think that would be the best indicator of getting out of potential salty soil. (though I do not claim to be an expert at this, someone may correct me if I am wrong)
The gold "market" looks even more scary in reference to the land you liked with the bigger view as it looks pretty much like the land you liked is directly in the path water would mostly likely take both on surface as well as below. Like the fan from the water from he dam, I would try drawing a similar fan from the gold "market" of the down stream/slope areas and avoid any land within that section.
Hope this is helpful.
Thank you again Devin for the helpful info
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Yes the gold market is not even 4 years old, thats the most scary thing about it, last I checked the spot, it had nothing there, not even a road, makes you think about it deeply... as in.. if I do find another suitable location/s for a big food forest, who is to say they won't build another gold or chemical station near the farms, I don't even understand why they built the gold market so close to the fan, as that waterway runoff from mountains joins the big "FAN" of farms..
I am just trying to predict bad spots, and chose "future safer" areas, as the goverment is known there to not care too much about farmers and displacing tens of thousands of people by damaging soil systems, changing plans for expanding cities or building huge dams in the past.
One can only hope that things will get better, however I don't count on it, there is a striking case of increasing famine, and people dying of thirst, because of the dams being built to supply the harbor city only. Very little actualy goes into the fan these days, there was a very strong flood half a year ago, and it might be a blessing, if those people had swales and ponds to collect it, but instead the flood diverted towards the city, and killed thousands of livestock and ruined many houses and crops.
Which is also why I liked the red marked area, it had 2 hills, in which shadow I could have built my house and key structures, so even extreme floods couldnt damage the area, they would just go right past the hills. And they cant be eroded since they are solid mini mountains of pure hard rock, granite is also a well know resource there, so I am not sure if thats why the mountain is still standing out in the middle of nowhere.
So the reason why I want to buy big land is, is cause I know how big my end goal wishes are, slowly expanding within my boundries and also following the lawtons advice, 70% trees, lots of deep small ponds, shaded to avoid as much evaporation as possible, lots of swales, keylines and dams to fix the water table and soil moisture, and hope that in about 5-10 years the forest can start feeding and provide drinkable water for others too as well as teach them what I can to improve their land.
As for elevation distance, it is around 80 metres above sea level near the mountains, 40 metres in the middle of the fan, and 5-10 metres at the coastal belt (marked with green line in picture below), where its 2 KM distance from belt to sea ( top soil there is visibly salty at spots ).
Another question I would have is, do I even need a well with pumped groundwater/flood water after I established the land in 3-5 years, with moist mulched soil, fixed nitrate, baby forest and shaded water bodies on top of years of rainy season rains seeping into soil all over the place. Reason is, I want the place to be very sustainable and not dependant on goverment dam and flood waters, the goverment keeps changing the flow of the dam waters too, so who knows if with urbanization one day nothing will be released from dam for the local farms..and then there are the chemicals too, what if more of those bad factories toxins seep into the main "FAN's" water stream.
So while I would like to have "easy" pumped, or watertank trucked water from the dam water, it would be much safer to just be self sustainable with the trustworthy rainwater and storing as much of it as possible, with 75mm ( 3 inches ) per year, would this even be do-able? Geoff said "for every one acre of land you need 20 acres of water" I am not exactly sure what that means in terms of water volume, but I guess with big enough land water harvesting wouldnt be a problem?
Even another question is, do I even need to live on the "FAN", or could I chose a spot further away from the cities farms, where no known floods are, chemicals, but also risk of no ground water. If if properly sustainedable managed rain harvesting could work, then might this not be a better idea?
Edit: And thank you for welcoming me, I just noticed it re-reading up. I thought I would do as much research on my own as I could before I would start bombarding permies with my silly questions, but the gold market was a real bummer I couldnt figure out haha. And thank you for your kinds words, and a big thank you for giving me advice not to buy land near gold factory, shameful to say but I never finished my school, due to serious head injury, that took me years to recover from, as I was also paralized, I still have permanent damage that makes my daily life 5x more tiresome as for normal people, learning and understanding new things can be very very hard "hence the silly questions", after recovering I didnt bother going back to school as I didn't feel like i fit in anymore with normal folks
. Another reason why I am trying to leave the busy western city life, to a more simple and calmer country side in africa with my family, even thought it is a desert, I have been inspired by many permaculturists over the years, that big beautiful things CAN be done!
Also below are pictures of different kinds of mountain abuse works going on
does anyone perhaps know any of the things they are digging up? It seems in many pictures, they are taking silt from riverbeds and piling them up in funny tiny hills?
Other little mountains get completely maggot grazed down to nothing....and then there is the dark dark areas that get munched out too, leaving giant empty scar basins, and the blue stuff?
If I know what excavations are toxic to farms, I can scout further away for better and safer potential buying land.
Thanks in advance!
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