Remarkable Achievements on Desertification Prevention and Treatment in Tarim River

On Nov. 28, 2006, a CAS KIP (Knowledge Innovation Program) project entitled “Research and Demonstration of the Desertification Prevention and Treatment as well as Oasis Ecosystem Management in the Middle and Lower Reaches of the Tarim River” passed the appraisal by an expert panel from the S&T Department of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Research Fellow Zhang Xiaolei, Director General of the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, CAS led the project team. Over the past five years, the researchers have been focusing on the harmonious development of environment and economy in the desert area. They established five models for land utilization in the middle and lower reaches of the Tarim River and a suitability evaluation system. They also created a model and a structure optimization scheme for the ecological and economic vegetation planted in the middle and lower reaches of the Tarim River. Finally, they developed six different sorts of technique related to the water and fertilizer-saving and high-yield cotton for the irrigation agriculture in oasis, which have produced remarkable benefits, such as cotton related water and fertilizers saved by 65.3% and 46.7% respectively as well as cotton yield increased by 34.86%. Meanwhile, they have completed the preparation of a digital Tarim River framework with layers of 23 factors including water, soil, vegetation, etc., which provides digital images for the Tarim River watersheds, such as the whole drainage area (1:100,000), the trunk stream covering an area of 20,000 km2 (1:10,000), and five key areas (1:2,000), etc.