DAF Desalination and Forests

Takes water from the sea and makes it fresh.

Creates a basin, to irrigate farms and restore the ecosystem.

Population living on coastal areas around the world is still increasing, and so are human activities such as agriculture. Coastal areas are unique social and economic sources for countries all around the world; and they are very susceptible to ecosystem changes, caused by natural or anthropogenic activities. They can be prone to environmental disasters, such as the desertification process. Desertification is mainly induced by climate changes, and it is worsen by sea level rise and from saltwater intrusion.

Here we propose a technological plant that promote environmental safeguard; it permit to react in a positive way to climate change processes, it add value to local development of coastal areas, improving coastal population resiliency to disasters. What we think about this plant is that it could be applied in coastal areas all over the world, especially in places where water sources are scarce and groundwater is at high degradation risk.

DAF is a systemic design, involving agronomy, ecology and engineering.
A small solar desalination plant is placed a few hundred meters from the coast; it captures water, filter it and sends it into a pipe, ending in an artificial basin. The basin is designed and built so that it is a semi-natural lake, surrounded by native vegetation, which can give shelter to the flora and fauna of the place.  Around the pond, at a certain distance (secured by the vegetation buffer), small plots of fertile land will rise. They will be used by local peasants.

In times of drought, the lake becomes an "insurance fund" of water for farmers, who can capture the water needed for crops and do not suffer hunger, making them safe in the case of extreme drought or heat. DALF is a preventive plan for coastal communities against the risks of climate change.

The desalination plant is activated to fill the lake and keep it at a constant level during non-drought periods.

DAF can make coastal communities more resilient to extreme events such as drought and desertification. It's a simple design, replicable in a lot of different countries around the world. It put communities at the centre, and give them the possibility to thrive in the future.

DAF marry technology with small-scale regenerative farming and ecosystem restoration. That's why is innovative:

it use a market-based approach to give coastal communities the farming capabilities that they need to grow their own food, save their own water and generate an income, while the lake (and the surrounding buffer) restore the ecosystem and gives shelter for flora and fauna.

DAF integrates an agroecological farming approach thatactively regenerates life and biodiversity, mixing technology and natural resources wisely.

The core of DAF is a small solar desalination plant; We don't build any
kind of new desalination plant, but we would like to use technology already on the market. This kind of machines are very small and very efficient. We met some builders at Seeds&Chips 2018 in Milan: this plants are cheap and very efficient.

They can be easily used and maintained by people of coastal communities, after a short formation.

1 Find partners that share our some ideas and try to implement a prototype (better in Europe to start);

2 Find fundings

We want to follow the famous "act local, think global" motto.

DAF should have a strong local impact, and then it could be implemented in other areas.

Every DAF, can impact a coastal community of 500 - 1000 people; we think that if it is scaled up, it can give water and food for 10'000 people at once.

We want to build a solid team, with a solid idea, so we can show to our costumers (governments, big companies and NGO's) our idea in details.

Communities, if everything goes well, will have a DAF directly on the ground, ready to help them grow the food they need and save the water for hard drought time! They will be instructed and followed by the DAF team till they become completely independent.

At the moment, nobody has been served with DAF.

I think we need at least 2 years to see our first prototype.

We hope in 3 years to have our first prototype working and serving at least 500 peoples: farmers and citizens in a small coastal communities, probably in Europe.

We are a quite diversified team, with 1 environmental expert, 1 agrotechnician, 1 geologist and 1 systemic designer.

We strongly believe in the project and we are working on it since 1 year;

Even if we lack some skills (economic and management), we have strong technical skills to make DAF a reality.

DAF is an engineering, agronomic and social work; the best revenue model for it is a project revenue. We sell the planning and design service, the physical goods needed (Desalinator, plants), the consultancy and the work in an unique solution, together with post-work help and consultancy.

Our costumers are big companies, NGO's and governments, but our consumers will be the people living in coastal communities where DAF is needed.

We can make a single DAF in one location, or if we need to scale we can make a modular system of DAF's one close to each other.

We designed DAF to be a really long-term project for communities, working slowly and with minimum mantainance. We would like to make it expand in different countries in the world. Only by adjusting some parameters, it can be implemented in a very wide area on the Planet.

I think DAF is a project that needs to involve a lot of different partners to become real.

So it's important for us to partecipate in contests like Solve, because I think we can find the best partners. We really want to cooperate for making it real.

We are a small group, with no so much money, and we are working in Italy. DAF, as I said previously, needs a lot of different people to become real, from NGO's to Governments to professionals. The main barrier is this. If we keep on believing in DAF, I think we can easily overcome it.