Norway is taking precautions to increase the protection of the seed storage vault. The seed vault is developed to protect and preserve the world's crops from any future disaster.
The seed storage vault is situated inside a mountain in the Norwegian archipelago. "Doomsday" vault is the other name of this Svalbard Global Seed Vault. This vault can store maximum 2.5 billion seeds. No doubt, Norway has a huge storehouse of seeds to preserve from all kinds of future disasters.
The seeds are kept in the vault safely maintaining the required temperature that is -18 degrees Celsius, Phys.org reported. The sealed packages of the seeds are stored on the shelves with an aim to make it usable for a long time. Thick rock and the permafrost together keep the seeds frozen and simultaneously secure for the centuries. But, last year Norway faced not so pleasant situation when the climate temperature was high.
High temperature melted the permafrost in October 2016 and this led water to enter 15 meters into the 100-meter long tunnel's entrance inside the vault. Though, the seeds were absolutely safe. A government spokeswoman of Norway reveals that managers of the vault are preparing for its additional protection. They are building a waterproof wall inside the vault.
Steps are also on to remove all sources that can create heat from inside this "doomsday" seed vault. BBC News revealed that if any man-made or natural disaster destroys a nation's seeds, then the specimens preserved in the vault could regenerate them. Hege Njaa Aschim, the government spokesman, revealed that temperature in October 2016 reached almost 0C though it should be 10C or colder. It is true that last year Norway experienced a wet summer.
Hege Njaa Aschim utters that climate experts should be followed to build protection for the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Seed samples above 880,000 are stored in this vault in Norway. The samples include the food staples like the wheat, rice, maize, sorghum, and cowpea.
The samples are collected from almost every nation in the world. The "doomsday" seed vault in Norway also preserves the South American and European varieties of lettuce, potatoes, barley and aubergine. It was 2008 when the Svalbard Global Seed Vault started the journey to provide a safe facility to store the seeds.
The vault was created to defend the disasters whether they are man-made or natural. Countries that have deposited seeds into this vault have the access to their own staff. The seed storage vault in Norway is regarded as an important room in the world.
