Xinjiang authorities say the Taklimakan Desert, China’s largest and one of the world’s most hostile sand seas, has been fully encircled by a 3,046-km green belt of drought-resistant trees and shrubs. The final planting took place in Yutian County on the desert’s southern edge, capping a decades-long effort under the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program. The belt is designed not just to block shifting dunes but to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, turning a region long known as the “Death Sea” into a net carbon sink.
Encircling the Death Sea With Living Barriers
The Taklimakan has carried the reputation of the “Death Sea” for centuries because of its extreme aridity, mobile dunes, and near-total absence of surface water. Explorers since Sven Hedin in 1896 documented its punishing conditions. But the green belt now ringing the desert combines two distinct engineering strategies: physical sand barriers made from grass and grass-shrub grids, and bioremediation through plant shelterbelts that stabilize soil and slow dune migration. Together, these measures have contributed to measurable desert shrinkage over the last two decades, according to Xinjiang officials who announced completion of the belt on the desert’s southern rim.
According to regional authorities, the key species planted along the belt include Populus euphratica, sacsaoul, and red willow. Populus euphratica stands out among poplars for its notable drought resistance and salt-alkali tolerance, traits that have made it a dominant species in desert ecosystems across northwestern China. The species mix matters because the Taklimakan’s soils are not just dry but saline, forcing planners to favor shrubs and trees that can survive both water scarcity and salt stress. This screening of hardy plants is essential to keep the living barrier intact as groundwater tables fluctuate and evaporation further concentrates salts in the soil.
From Sand to Carbon Sink
The green belt’s most consequential promise goes beyond sand control. A study published in the journal Sustainability measured soil organic carbon dynamics in shelter forests along the Taklimakan Desert highway, comparing stands aged 5 to 16 years. The research found that afforestation changed soil carbon fractions and carbon stock levels, with shrub root systems stabilizing soil and trapping organic material that would otherwise blow away. These findings suggest that even relatively young plantings in hyper-arid conditions can begin to function as carbon reservoirs within a few years of establishment, helping offset emissions from transport and energy use in surrounding regions.
Satellite evidence supports the broader pattern. MODIS data analyzed by the Earth Observatory showed that global leaf area increased from 2000 to 2017, with China contributing a large share of that greening. Much of the gain was attributed to forest conservation and expansion programs rather than natural regrowth, and large-scale shelterbelts in the country’s north and northwest were singled out as major contributors. When combined with field measurements of soil carbon and biomass, this orbital record underpins the claim by Xinjiang officials that the Taklimakan’s periphery is shifting from bare sand to a patchwork of carbon-storing oases and forest strips.
Billions of Yuan and Millions of Hectares
The scale of China’s commitment is visible in the budget. China’s Ministry of Finance and National Development and Reform Commission jointly released a circular establishing a dedicated fund for the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program, allocating 12 billion yuan from the 2024 central budget to expand and maintain shelter forests in key regions. Priority control areas for the fund include the Hexi Corridor and the Taklimakan Desert, the two most aggressive desertification fronts in China’s northwest. That targeted spending reflects a shift from broad, nationwide planting quotas toward site-specific engineering in the harshest terrain, where every kilometer of forest belt requires irrigation works, road access, and long-term management.
Nationally, more than 30 million hectares of trees and shrubs have been planted across arid and semi-arid zones under major ecological programs, according to government summaries disseminated through the central policy portal. Officials frame these efforts as part of a wider “ecological civilization” agenda that links sand control, biodiversity protection, and rural livelihoods. In Xinjiang, local governments have tied desert shelterbelts to job creation in seedling nurseries, drip-irrigation manufacturing, and maintenance teams, positioning the Taklimakan belt as both an environmental barrier and a long-term development project for sparsely populated counties on the desert’s edge.
Monitoring the Belt From Space and Ground
Tracking whether the Taklimakan belt delivers on its carbon and land-restoration promises depends on consistent monitoring. Chinese agencies have increased the use of remote sensing, soil surveys, and vegetation plots to gauge survival rates and canopy expansion, while also drawing on international datasets. Global observation programs coordinated by agencies such as NASA provide long time series on vegetation indices, land surface temperature, and dust emissions, which researchers use to detect whether shelterbelts are cooling local microclimates and reducing sandstorms. Cross-referencing these datasets with on-the-ground biomass measurements is crucial to avoid overestimating the carbon benefits of new plantings.
Public access to data and policy documents has also expanded. China’s central government maintains an English-language search platform where notices on ecological restoration, budget allocations, and regional plans are periodically posted. Internationally, mission updates and Earth-science briefings published through official news channels help contextualize China’s greening within global climate and land-use trends. Together, these sources allow researchers to track how the Taklimakan belt interacts with broader atmospheric circulation patterns, including dust transport across East Asia and beyond.
Unfinished Work at the Desert’s Edge
Despite the milestone of a continuous green ring, scientists and officials caution that the Taklimakan remains one of the world’s most fragile environments. Tree and shrub belts in hyper-arid zones face chronic water stress, pest outbreaks, and the risk of dieback if irrigation infrastructure fails or groundwater drops. Some ecologists have warned that planting densities must be carefully managed to avoid over-extraction of scarce water resources, arguing that sparse, mixed-species shelterbelts may be more sustainable than dense monoculture forests. In response, Xinjiang planners say they are adjusting species composition and thinning older stands to balance sand control with long-term ecosystem health.
For now, the belt encircling the “Death Sea” stands as a highly visible test of whether engineered ecosystems can stabilize some of the planet’s harshest landscapes while sequestering carbon. Its future will depend on continued funding, adaptive management, and transparent monitoring that can verify both the protective and climatic benefits claimed by its backers. As climate change intensifies heat and alters precipitation across Central Asia, the Taklimakan’s living barrier may offer lessons, positive and cautionary, for other countries weighing large-scale tree planting as a tool against desertification and global warming.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
