{"id":388688,"date":"2017-10-16T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?guid=8a4917a75fe9cb9e5f1629776bc47a42"},"modified":"2017-10-16T03:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T07:00:00","slug":"sustenance-from-the-sands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=388688","title":{"rendered":"Sustenance from the sands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/videos\/2017\/10\/sustenance_from_the_sands\/17191543-1-eng-GB\/Sustenance_from_the_sands_small.png\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\nSome 30 years ago, the barren landscape of Saudi Arabia\u2019s Wadi As Sirhan basin looked like any other desert. But over time, satellites such as the US Landsats and Copernicus Sentinels saw the area transform into a vast cropland.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe fields are fed by fossil water pumped from deep underground and distributed by central-pivot irrigation systems, where long water pipes rotate around a well at the centre, creating the circular features. Created thousands of years ago when the region received more rainfall, these water reserves enable agriculture in today\u2019s desert, but experts say this resource will eventually be exhausted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/videos\/2017\/10\/sustenance_from_the_sands\/17191543-1-eng-GB\/Sustenance_from_the_sands_small.png\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\"><\/p>\n<p>\nSome 30 years ago, the barren landscape of Saudi Arabia&rsquo;s Wadi As Sirhan basin looked like any other desert. But over time, satellites such as the US Landsats and Copernicus Sentinels saw the area transform into a vast cropland.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe fields are fed by fossil water pumped from deep underground and distributed by central-pivot irrigation systems, where long water pipes rotate around a well at the centre, creating the circular features. Created thousands of years ago when the region received more rainfall, these water reserves enable agriculture in today&rsquo;s desert, but experts say this resource will eventually be exhausted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-388688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=388688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388689,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388688\/revisions\/388689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=388688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=388688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=388688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}