Watch: Time-Lapse Video Shows Crop Circles Popping Up Across The Egyptian Desert

A new incredible time-lapse video, created by using hundreds of satellite images, shows how the face of the Egyptian desert transformed over the years as crop circles began popping up across the nation.

The Egyptian landmass is over 95 percent desert, which leaves a very limited area for agriculture. However, increasing demand for food has necessitated the government to introduce programs that enable even the desert to be roped in for agricultural purposes.

According to the European Space Agency (ESA), the time-lapse video represents the land reclamation project in East Oweinat, in the Western Desert of Egypt. The ESA used a series of 150 satellite images, some of which date back to 1998, to show how crop circles have transformed the face of the Egyptian desert. The images used were gathered by the US Landsat and the Copernicus Sentinel-2 missions, and highlight how the project has progressed from January 1998 to March 2019.

Each of the crop circles, which are represented by the dark, circular shapes in the video, are around 800 meters wide. The irrigation method used to cultivate the desert land relies on fossil water, which has been stored underground for centuries. This water comes from the largest fossil aquifer ever discovered – the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer. Since the water in the East Oweinat region contains low levels of salt, it is considered ideal for irrigation and crop cultivation. Desert farmers are able to grow wheat, barley, and potatoes, which are exported via the Sharq El Owainat airport.

“Changes over the last 21 years are clearly visible when more fields develop, but the data also show other subtle changes within the fields themselves,” the ESA said in a statement. “This data can be used to monitor changes in land-cover over time. Long-term preservation of the satellite data from different missions ensures that changes to the land can be monitored by analysing data from the archives.”

Click here to watch the time-lapse video.