Desert deterioration in Ulan Buh Desert

According to the person in charge of Wuhai Forestry Bureau, in the past 40 years, due to the dual reasons of natural climate warming and man-made destruction, the expansion speed of Ulan Buh Desert from east to south is amazing. According to relevant data, in the early 1960s, the eastern edge of Ulan Buh Desert was nearly 30 kilometers away from Wuhai. Less than 40 years later, nearly13 of the land in Uda District has been swallowed up by Wulanbu and the desert. The eastern edge of Wulanbuhe Desert extends from Alashan League on the west bank of the Yellow River to Haibowan District on the east bank of the Yellow River, with an erosion area of nearly 100 square kilometers, all of which form crescent-shaped and semi-moon-shaped mobile dunes, and the relative height of some dunes reaches more than 50 meters.

The rapid advancement of Ulan Buh Desert has seriously affected the daily life of people in the surrounding areas. According to the third monitoring report of desertification and desertification land in the autonomous region, the proportion of desertification and desertification area in Wuhai city to the total land area of the city is as high as 80. 12%. Serious desertification and desertification lead to a bad natural ecological environment in Wuhai. The annual average precipitation is less than1.60mm (only 8 1.5mm in 2005), while the evaporation is as high as 3,500mm. Sandstorm weather and sandstorms occur frequently, and the maximum number of days with daily average wind speed greater than 3m/s reaches 30 1 day. Wuhai City has become one of the cities with the most serious desertification in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and even China.

After liberation, large-scale operation began. A windbreak and sand-fixing forest belt with a width of 300-400 meters and a length of 175 kilometers was built on the line from Shililiuzi in Dengkou County to Taiyangmiao in Hangjinhou Banner, and 5 kilometers on both sides of the forest belt were closed for sand cultivation and grass planting, which controlled the eastward movement of the desert. In addition to planting trees and grass, the desert has also opened up more than 200,000 mu of cultivated land, mainly planting wheat, corn, sweet potatoes, sunflower seeds and various melons. Wulanbuhe desert is rich in sunshine, and can be irrigated by gravity from the Yellow River. Lakes and ponds are widely distributed, which has good conditions for developing agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry and fishery.