Post by account_disabled on Feb 28, 2024 8:48:13 GMT
Will underwater greenhouses be the future of agriculture?
One hundred and thirty feet off the coast of the town of Noli in the Italian region of Liguria, six large transparent domes, or biospheres, (underwater greenhouses) like a huge jellyfish moored to the ocean floor, are growing herbs, vegetables and flowers.
The project is known as Nemo's Garden and is the world's first and only underwater greenhouse . These biospheres use the favorable environmental qualities of the ocean, such as temperature stability, CO absorption and natural pest control, to create a habitat suitable for producing a large amount of fresh produce, according to Euronews Green.
Nemo's Garden has significant implications for the future of the Earth, as it was designed specifically for regions where environmental, economic or morphological factors make plant development particularly challenging. The world will need to feed a global population of billion amid increasingly unstable climate conditions by , according to the United Nations , and the team behind the project believes underwater greenhouses could provide a food supply for coastal populations where Agriculture must be innovative to survive.
underwater greenhouses
Inside Nemo's Garden
Nemo's Garden was born after Sergio Gamberini , president of diving equipment manufacturer Ocean Reef, was challenged by a farmer friend in to combine his experience building diving equi C Level Executive List pment with his love of gardening.
Since then, Nemo's Garden has been investigating the idea of growing terrestrial plants inside underwater greenhouses. More than a hundred different plants have taken root in this underground garden, from medicinal and aromatic herbs to foods such as salads, beans and strawberries. Not only did they successfully harvest a variety of crops from the biospheres, but they also determined that plants produced in this environment had richer nutritional content than those grown using traditional methods. Of course, it doesn't stop there.
“Every year, we are discovering new possible applications for biospheres,” says Gianni Fontanesi, project coordinator at Nemo's Garden. Ecotourism, fish farming, seaweed farming , scientific research laboratories, and underwater wildlife research stations are some examples.
underwater greenhouses
But can it be scaled?
When it comes to its engineering, approximately , liters of air are held over a body of surface water within each dome. Sunlight flows through the water outside the biospheres to reach and warm the air inside. When there is less natural light in the winter, LEDs connected to the surface by a power cable provide an additional light source. The outside water keeps the temperature inside the underwater greenhouses constant day and night, and evaporation and condensation inside the dome keep the plants supplied with fresh water.
Nemo's Garden is supported by Siemens Digital Industries Software , which allows the team to monitor biospheres remotely and hopefully accelerates innovation cycles towards faster industrialization and scale.
The concept has already proven to be effective and successful, meaning the team can now begin exporting the technology elsewhere. In fact, biospheres have already been built in Belgium and the Florida Keys, and more are on the way .
One hundred and thirty feet off the coast of the town of Noli in the Italian region of Liguria, six large transparent domes, or biospheres, (underwater greenhouses) like a huge jellyfish moored to the ocean floor, are growing herbs, vegetables and flowers.
The project is known as Nemo's Garden and is the world's first and only underwater greenhouse . These biospheres use the favorable environmental qualities of the ocean, such as temperature stability, CO absorption and natural pest control, to create a habitat suitable for producing a large amount of fresh produce, according to Euronews Green.
Nemo's Garden has significant implications for the future of the Earth, as it was designed specifically for regions where environmental, economic or morphological factors make plant development particularly challenging. The world will need to feed a global population of billion amid increasingly unstable climate conditions by , according to the United Nations , and the team behind the project believes underwater greenhouses could provide a food supply for coastal populations where Agriculture must be innovative to survive.
underwater greenhouses
Inside Nemo's Garden
Nemo's Garden was born after Sergio Gamberini , president of diving equipment manufacturer Ocean Reef, was challenged by a farmer friend in to combine his experience building diving equi C Level Executive List pment with his love of gardening.
Since then, Nemo's Garden has been investigating the idea of growing terrestrial plants inside underwater greenhouses. More than a hundred different plants have taken root in this underground garden, from medicinal and aromatic herbs to foods such as salads, beans and strawberries. Not only did they successfully harvest a variety of crops from the biospheres, but they also determined that plants produced in this environment had richer nutritional content than those grown using traditional methods. Of course, it doesn't stop there.
“Every year, we are discovering new possible applications for biospheres,” says Gianni Fontanesi, project coordinator at Nemo's Garden. Ecotourism, fish farming, seaweed farming , scientific research laboratories, and underwater wildlife research stations are some examples.
underwater greenhouses
But can it be scaled?
When it comes to its engineering, approximately , liters of air are held over a body of surface water within each dome. Sunlight flows through the water outside the biospheres to reach and warm the air inside. When there is less natural light in the winter, LEDs connected to the surface by a power cable provide an additional light source. The outside water keeps the temperature inside the underwater greenhouses constant day and night, and evaporation and condensation inside the dome keep the plants supplied with fresh water.
Nemo's Garden is supported by Siemens Digital Industries Software , which allows the team to monitor biospheres remotely and hopefully accelerates innovation cycles towards faster industrialization and scale.
The concept has already proven to be effective and successful, meaning the team can now begin exporting the technology elsewhere. In fact, biospheres have already been built in Belgium and the Florida Keys, and more are on the way .