The Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, northern Norway, known as the "Doomsday Seed Vault", was established in 2008 to preserve "backups" of plant seeds around the world in response to natural and man-made disasters. Recently, the reporter of the main station visited the Svalbard seed bank to reveal the secret of this mysterious "plant Noah's ark" for you.
Hao Xiaoli: The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was designed by Norwegian architects and built 120 meters inside a sandstone mountain in the permafrost.
The seed bank has three seed banks, each with a capacity of 1.5 million seeds, for a total of about 4.5 million copies, each sample containing approximately 500 seeds, which translates to a total of 2.25 billion seeds. The seed bank currently stores more than 1 million seed samples from more than 5,000 plant species.
Hao Xiaoli, reporter of the main station: The temperature of the storage warehouse has been controlled at minus 18 degrees Celsius for a long time, and the amount of oxygen has been reduced, which can delay the aging of seeds.
Svalbard produces coal mines, which can provide raw materials for the power of seed bank chillers. Seeds can live for decades, centuries, or even thousands of years.
Asdal, Global Seed Bank Operations and Management Coordinator at Svalbard: In the event of an emergency, we can use fuel to power the seed bank, for example if there is a power outage, we can produce our own electricity for weeks. But in the long run, we have enough time to build new power and refrigeration systems.
According to the researchers, the Svalbard seed bank is about 130 meters above sea level, and it will be safe even if Greenland's ice sheet melts or Antarctica's ice completely melts. In addition, the building is designed to withstand earthquakes of magnitude 10.
However, the seed bank suffered a crisis. In October 2016, climate change caused heavy rainfall in Svalbard, and the permafrost unexpectedly melted, infiltrating the entrance to the seed bank and spreading 15 meters downward, but fortunately the seeds in the reservoir were unharmed. In 2018, the Norwegian Environment Agency reported that the local temperature in Svalbard had risen by about 3.5 degrees Celsius between 1971 and 2017. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute simulated climate change from 2071 to 2100 and found that local temperatures will continue to rise, the probability of disasters such as heavy rain and avalanches will increase, and some permafrost will melt.
Asdar, Svalbard Global Seed Bank Operations and Management Coordinator: In 2016, we experienced a heavy rainfall that caused more water in the tunnel than ever before. The Norwegian government and partners decided that a new waterproof tunnel had to be built, so today we have a fully waterproof tunnel entrance. The technology it uses is actually from offshore rigs, and we believe the seed bank will be safe in the future and will not be affected by climate change.
In 2015, the "Doomsday Seed Bank" was the first to be stockpiled due to the war
In 2015, the "seed bank" accepted applications for the first time to extract seed backups.
During Syria's civil war, some of the seeds originally used for research at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas in Aleppo were destroyed. In 2015, the center plans to build a seed bank in the Bekaa Valley on the border between Lebanon and Syria. An application was subsequently made to the Svalbard Global Seed Bank for the extraction of 130 boxes of grain seeds, the first time that seeds from the stock had been extracted from the Svalbard Seed Bank in its first seven years since it was opened.
Source: CCTV News Client