Aral Sea went from the third largest lake in the world to a salt desert https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

This is completely human caused — the whole thing was drained by people for irrigation 

It has set up the largest primary succession experiment ever — watching to see if anything grows in the salt desert left behind https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-59560-8_5

The Farcaster formerly known as Kchamp. Books, beats, bodybuilding, bright ideas and beautiful things.

katherinechampagne.com 

This seems like a great are for some synthetic biology to come in and make plants that thrive specifically in a salt desert