A coastal area in Jordan will become the testing ground for the revolutionary Sahara Forest Project, which intends to turn the desert into a green growing oasis.

In a rare combination of 21st century technologies that include solar thermal power, biomass production and the use of Seawater greenhouses, this amazing initiative aims to create life and sustainable agriculture in a notoriously arid region of the world. The initial pilot facility will be located on a 2,000,000 square meter (21,527,821 sq. ft.) plot of land in Aqaba, a coastal town in the south of Jordan.

The idea for this amazing initiative was first presented in 2009 at the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. Jordan’s King Abdullah II saw a project presentation during a visit to Norway later that year and agreed to facilitate the program.

If this pilot program is successful – and there’s every reason to believe it will be – it could be an exciting giant step forward to successfully addressing the growing issue of falling water tables and looming freshwater shortages around the globe that threaten our future food supply. We should all keep our fingers crossed.