Robots, plants and photovoltaic panels – China fortifies 'green Great Wall' to contain desert

For Saydi Emin, a farmer residing on the southern edge of the Taklimakan Desolate tract, is named the “Sea of Loss of life,” sandstorms had been a fixed possibility.

They’d rip away the plastic film retaining his fields and break cotton seedlings, ceaselessly resulting in reduced or zero yields. These challenges left him with lingering fears. However now, with the sizzling completion of a desolate tract regulate venture in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Self sustaining Region, Saydi Emin sees hope for a future free from such risks.

The finest desolate tract in China, the Taklimakan is now completely encircled by a green belt stretching 3,046 km as of late November, thanks to more than four decades of efforts as half of China’s Three-North Shelterbelt Wooded space Program, the enviornment’s finest afforestation program to handle desertification.

All the easiest diagram thru the last 46 years, China has expanded its afforestation space by 32 million hectares under this diagram. The afforestation space under this diagram is projected to encompass over 4 million sq. km during 13 provincial-degree areas by 2050, accounting for 42.4 p.c of the country’s total land space.

Additionally, the forest coverage fee of the areas under this diagram has risen from 5.05 p.c to 13.84 p.c. Foremost development has been made in desertification and soil erosion regulate, while protection has been ensured for roughly 30 million hectares of farmland.

ECOLOGICAL BARRIER

Masking 337,600 sq. km with a circumference of three,046 km, the Taklimakan is additionally the enviornment’s 2nd-finest drifting desolate tract, in step with statistics.

The desolate tract poses well-known threats to its surrounding ecological ambiance. Over time, it has buried roads, river channels and farmland, with some sand dunes encroaching on oases at a fee of two to some meters a year.

For the reason that originate of the Three-North Shelterbelt Wooded space Program, well-known transformations beget taken diagram. Over more than 40 years, the desolate tract changed into as soon as step by step encircled with a green belt. By the cease of 2023, a 2,761-km stretch of the belt had connected scattered oases during Xinjiang, leaving easiest the most now not easy half to cease.

The closing stretch, roughly 285 km long, runs thru areas alongside the southern edge of the desolate tract, where it faces the most extreme wind and sand hazards. Since this year, Xinjiang has implemented centered and scientific measures to discontinuance this gap.

Tuhti Rahman, director of the Xinjiang regional forestry and grassland bureau, acknowledged the green belt will guarantee the soundness of agricultural production, reinforce the city residing ambiance and promote Xinjiang’s financial and social construction.

The venture fully demonstrates China’s modern manner to ecological building and provides valuable trip for world efforts in combating desertification, Tuhti Rahman added.

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION

Controlling desertification on the sting of the Taklimakan is a formidable instruct, prompting diversified areas to explore tailored measures to strive in opposition to its encroachment.

Let’s stutter, loads of bulldozers are considered transferring within the sandstorm-inclined areas of Minfeng County in Xinjiang’s Hotan Prefecture on the present time. Once the land is leveled, drip irrigation tapes shall be laid down and vegetation like tamarisk shall be planted, a capability is named desolate tract regulate thru organic measures.

Also positioned on the southern edge of the desolate tract, Hotan’s Pishan County is one among the areas most frequently plagued by sandy and dusty weather. To strive in opposition to this, the county has implemented a unfold of engineering measures to get the desolate tract’s expansion.

In step with Zhang Peiji, deputy director of Pishan’s forestry and grassland bureau, the sand dunes in an space of the county are widely spaced and common straw checkerboards — where straw is placed in a checkerboard pattern on the desolate tract ground to repair the dunes — are without complications buried by the animated sand.

Subsequently, after on-station planning by Xinjiang’s forestry consultants, staunch sand limitations with a height of over one meter had been diagram up, effectively preventing wind and sand.

Luo Aike, deputy director of the forestry and grassland bureau of Hotan Prefecture, outlined that the combo of photovoltaics and agriculture provides a brand fresh model for sand regulate and fixation in Hotan, mainly in areas some distance from oases. This modern manner generates vitality while reducing wind tempo above and helps the expansion of drought-tolerant vegetation under, offering multiple, simultaneous advantages.

Additionally, a domestically developed intellectual robot has been deployed in Qiemo County to transplant vegetation within the desolate tract. The robot navigates the desolate tract alongside preset routes and performs projects equivalent to digging holes and planting seedlings, attaining effectivity many instances larger than ragged manual planting.

BOOSTING LIVELIHOOD

Luo acknowledged the green belt shall be further consolidated and expanded, noting that efforts must be made to advertise the attain of sand industries to wait on native residents.

In an space adjacent to the desolate tract in Minfeng County, vegetation at the side of tamarisk were planted on straw checkerboards, creating a dense green belt. Locals additionally graft cistanche, a ragged Chinese medicinal herb that grows within the desolate tract, onto tamarisk bushes, to invent further profits.

In Hotan’s Carve County, native authorities beget impressed and guided diversified social forces to beget interaction in sand prevention and regulate. Because of this, three enterprises were launched to relief restore 170,300 mu (about 11,353 hectares) of desertified land.

In Carve, a total of 690 households beget shriveled sandy land for reclamation and planting, with each family managing 30 to 50 mu. The authorities provides subsidies after verifying the survival fee of the vegetation.

To diversify the sand industries, Hotan promotes more than 20 nick styles that are economically valuable and smartly-suited to native prerequisites, at the side of Chinese medicinal herbs and forage. This initiative helps farmers boost their incomes thru desolate tract regulate. Over 30 nick styles are currently being examined for cultivation within the prefecture.

“The ambiance has severely improved compared to the past, contributing to fewer sandstorms and better cotton yields. Thanks to desolate tract administration, the cultivation of Chinese medicinal herbs has became that that it’s doubtless you’ll remember,” acknowledged Saydi Emin. “I remember my life shall be larger.”