Great Plains Shelterbelt

Great Plains Shelterbelt
Plains States Forestry Project poster created by the Works Progress Administration (1940)
Geography
LocationGreat Plains, United States
Area18,600 square miles
Administration
Established1934

The Great Plains Shelterbelt was a project to create windbreaks in the Great Plains states of the United States, that began in 1934.[1] President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the project in response to the severe dust storms of the Dust Bowl, which resulted in significant soil erosion and drought. The United States Forest Service believed that planting trees on the perimeters of farms would reduce wind velocity and lessen evaporation of moisture from the soil. By 1942, 220 million trees had been planted, covering 18,600 square miles (48,000 km2)[2] in a 100-mile-wide zone from Canada to the Brazos River. Even as of 2007, "the federal response to the Dust Bowl, including the Prairie States Forestry Project which planted the Great Plains Shelterbelt and creation of the Soil Erosion Service, represents the largest and most-focused effort of the [U.S.] government to address an environmental problem".[3][4]

  1. ^ "Fighting the Drouth" Popular Mechanics, October 1934.
  2. ^ Hurt, R. Douglas. "Forestry on the Great Plains, 1902–1942". Kansas State University. Retrieved September 21, 2009.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference oklahoma was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Sauer, Thomas. The Dust Bowl's Prairie States Forestry Project: Model for an Effective Global Climate Change Strategy?. The ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meetings (November 4–8, 2007). Retrieved March 2, 2012.