China has spent decades turning the edge of the Taklamakan Desert into a living barrier, planting trees and shrubs where bare sand once stretched to the horizon. That effort is now large enough that scientists say vegetation around the country’s largest desert is acting as a stable carbon sink, absorbing more carbon dioxide than it releases. In effect, a region often called the “Sea of Death” is being recast as a vast, human-made sponge for greenhouse gases.
The story is about far more than planting trees. It is also a test of whether large-scale work with nature can slow desert expansion, cut dust storms and store climate-warming gases at the same time. So far, the results look promising, but they also show how fragile such projects can be when they depend on steady water supplies, long-term care and continued political support.
The Taklamakan’s shift to carbon sink
The Taklamakan Desert has long been seen as a biological void, a harsh basin of dunes ringed by mountains in China’s northwest. Its huge size, and the fact that it is China’s largest desert, has made it a major source of dust and a symbol of how far dry land can spread when plants die off. Turning even the margins of such a place into productive land is a major challenge, yet that is exactly what a decades-long greening project has tried to do.
According to reporting on China’s planting drive, the country has added more than 66 billion trees around the Taklamakan, lifting forest cover in the region to over 25 percent and turning what was once near-empty terrain into a band of managed woodland and shrubland. Scientists now describe this belt of vegetation as a stable carbon sink, meaning it takes in more carbon dioxide than it releases year after year. That shift from “biological void” to net absorber of carbon marks a major change in how the desert’s edge functions in the climate system.
Great Green Wall and the “Sea of Death”
The Taklamakan belt is not an isolated project. It is one part of the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Programme, often called the Great Green Wall, which stretches across northern China. This state-led effort aims to slow or reverse desertification by planting belts of trees and rebuilding soil structure along the country’s dry northern frontier, and public summaries describe how it links land protection with broader economic and social goals.
Recent updates from project supporters say China has finished the last sections of this Great Green Wall, describing the overall forested area as roughly the size of Germany and noting that earlier phases began in 1978 and are planned to run through 2050, a span of about 72 years that includes key milestones in 1998, 2011 and 2021 for different stages of work.Project summaries also highlight that one section is a 3,046‑kilometer green corridor built through the Taklamakan itself, threading a vegetated strip across what explorers once called the Sea of Death and turning some of its most hostile edges into managed land.
How shrubs and trees trap carbon
Tree planting is the most visible part of this story, but the key climate work happens in the shrubs and soil. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, working with Chinese partners, have focused on hardy shrubs planted on the desert’s rim that can keep photosynthesizing under dry, hot conditions when many trees would fail. In their view, these shrubs act as a steady pump that pulls carbon dioxide out of the air and feeds it into roots, stems and soil organic matter, even when rainfall is low.
University reports say the decades-long Taklamakan greening project has created vegetation on the periphery that absorbs more carbon dioxide than it emits, which scientists see as a strong sign of successful afforestation and land restoration.UCR researchers point out that this result comes not only from trees but also from low, woody plants and the soil crust that forms between them, which together slow wind, trap dust and build up carbon-rich material over time.
Water from the mountains and a fragile sink
The greening of the Taklamakan’s edge depends on more than planting techniques. It also relies on meltwater that flows down from surrounding mountains. Reports from research agencies explain that shrubs on the desert’s rim survive only because of mountain runoff, which brings both water and nutrients to the planted belts and allows them to endure long dry spells that would otherwise kill young plants.
Scientists involved in the work stress that this carbon sink is literally rooted in that highland runoff, and they warn that changes to snowfall or glacier melt could weaken it.Research briefings describe how the planted shrubs, supported by this water, help stabilize dunes, reduce dust and “let us breathe a little easier,” but they also imply that if runoff shrinks, the plants could die back and the desert could start to expand again.
Desertification, dust and China’s emissions
China’s push to green the Taklamakan is closely tied to its struggle with desertification. As vegetation disappears, soil erodes, groundwater drops and farms fail, while dust storms carry sand and fine particles hundreds of kilometers to major cities. Research groups note that expanding deserts are damaging ecosystems and farmland and that dust from these areas mixes with industrial pollution to make air quality in cities such as Beijing even worse.
Scientific summaries say that reversing desertification is seen as a way to protect land and also reduce part of China’s carbon footprint, which they describe as about 40 billion tons of carbon per year when all sources are added up.One analysis frames projects like the Taklamakan greening and the wider Three-North belt as “two-for-one” tools: they cut dust and land loss while using forests and shrubs as sinks for a share of those 40 billion tons, even though the sink is still small compared with total national emissions.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
