Vegetation management and recovery at sites distrubed for solar thermal power systems development. Progress report for FY 1980

Technical Report · Sun Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 1981

OSTI ID:6550550

Romney, E M; Hunter, R B; Wallace, A

Disturbing land to develop energy producing technologies in Mojave Desert areas usually destroys existing shrub vegetation that cannot be repaired by natural restoration processes within the time frame requried by environmental protection legislation. Such is the case, especially, for central receiver solar thermal power systems which perturb large areas of land. Once the natural vegetation is destroyed, the denuded land is more vulnerable to water and wind erosion, and the subsequent dust-prone environment generally becomes a nuisance to construction engineers and installation operators. The primary effort of the vegetation management project during FY 1980 was directed toward the development of cost effective methods of restoring native vegetation on disturbed Mojave Desert land. Emphasis was placed upon improving techniques for producing transplanting stocks of native shrub species, investigating different ways to protect and encourage regrowth from crown sprouting and new seedling germination, developing improved transplanting methods, and searching for more practical means of conserving seasonal soil moisture necessary for the survival of new plant seedlings and transplanted specimens. An overall project goal is to develop methods of restoring native vegetation on disturbed Mojave Desert land within a two or three year time frame in order to provide engineers with a useful tool to combat disturbed site erosion and fugitive dust problems.

• Research Organization: California Univ., Los Angeles (USA). Lab. of Biomedical and Environmental Sciences
• DOE Contract Number: AC03-76SF00012
• OSTI ID: 6550550
• Report Number(s): UCLA-12-1281
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
140400* -- Solar Energy-- Environmental Aspects
140700 -- Solar Thermal Power Systems
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
299001 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Solar-- (1989-)
510500 -- Environment
Terrestrial-- Site Resource & Use Studies-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ARID LANDS
DESERTS
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
PLANTS
POWER PLANTS
REVEGETATION
SOLAR POWER PLANTS
SOLAR THERMAL POWER PLANTS
THERMAL POWER PLANTS