China and the Ambition to Turn Desert into Arable Land

The idea of transforming deserts into forests seems promising, but realizing it requires political will, manpower, and resources.

A United Nations report indicates that arid lands, including vast desert regions, account for 41.3% of the Earth’s total land area. What if a large portion of this land could be converted into fertile, cultivable soil? This issue is particularly significant for China, a country with a total land area of 3.5 million square miles, of which only 12% is arable.

In 2016, researchers from Chongqing Jiaotong University in China announced that they had developed a new technology capable of converting deserts into agricultural land. At first glance, the idea of transforming deserts into farmland appears beneficial for agriculture, the economy, reforestation, and natural resource management. However, the impact of converting deserts and grasslands into cultivable land could have large-scale effects on climate, biodiversity, and the overall ecological balance of the planet, which needs thorough investigation.

How China is Transforming Deserts into Agricultural Land

The technology developed by researchers at Chongqing Jiaotong University involves a gel made from plant cellulose, which can significantly enhance water retention, minerals, air, bacteria, and nutrients essential for crop growth. This gel has been applied to a 1.6-hectare sandy plot in the Ulan Buh Desert, located in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Over time, this area has been transformed into fertile farmland capable of producing tomatoes, rice, watermelons, sunflowers, and corn.

Professor Yang Qingguo from Jiaotong University explains: “The cost of artificial materials and machinery to turn sand into soil is lower than that of environmental remediation and controlled agriculture.”

According to Chinese researchers, crops grown on sandy soil yield higher outputs than those using the same amount of water needed for development on conventional agricultural land. Moreover, the amount of fertilizer required for crops is lower compared to that needed for the growth of vegetables on other types of soil.

Realizing the idea of transforming deserts into agricultural land requires political will, manpower, and resources. (Source: interestingengineering.com).

This research was conducted by scientists Yi Zhijian and Zhao Chaohua, and the results were published in 2016 in the English journal Engineering, released by the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE). The technique developed by the researchers was also presented at the United Nations Conference to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), an initiative started in 1994 aimed at halting desertification processes by 2030 through global cooperation and long-term strategies.

The Three-North Shelter Forest Program in China

The research project at Jiaotong University is not China’s first attempt to convert deserts into fertile land. In 1978, China launched a more ambitious program known as the Three-North Shelter Forest Program, or the Green Great Wall – aimed at preventing the expansion of the Gobi Desert and initiating reforestation projects in Northeast, North, and Northwest China.

To date, the program has effectively limited the expansion of desertification, helping to prevent sandstorms and soil erosion, conserve water and land, and protect agriculture in the region. The Shelter Forest Program is expected to be completed by 2050, with an estimated 35 million hectares of land to be converted into forests. The Chinese government claims this is the largest reforestation initiative in the world.

According to a report from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, over the past four decades, more than 7.88 million hectares of windbreak trees have been planted, 336,200 square kilometers of desertified land have been greened, and over 10 million hectares of grassland have been protected or restored. Meanwhile, in the Loess Plateau, grass and forest coverage has increased by about 60%, and sediment accumulation in the Yellow River has significantly decreased. NASA satellite images confirm that forest coverage in China has increased over the past 20 years due to various conservation efforts by the Chinese government.

However, some aspects of the project have been deemed controversial – in the early years of the project, monoculture was practiced in some areas, which reduced species biodiversity and led to the spread of plant diseases.

Jennifer L. Turner, Director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center, told National Geographic in 2017 that, “with the Green Great Wall, a lot of trees are being planted during large ceremonies to combat desertification, but then no one takes care of them, so the trees die.”

The magazine also pointed out that reforestation could exceed the land’s carrying capacity, causing trees to gradually die off without regular human care. Despite some initial issues, China continues its largest reforestation project, which has yielded some positive results. Since the project began, the northern region has seen an increase in green coverage from 5% to 13.5%, and parts of the Gobi Desert are now flourishing with healthy vegetation, fertile land, and increased rainfall.

Another significant breakthrough is the transformation of the Maowusu Desert in Inner Mongolia, northern China, into a lush forest. By 2020, 93.24% of the Maowusu Desert area had been restored with vegetation, and previously desert areas ranked among the four largest in China have nearly disappeared from the map. In addition to the Green Great Wall, China has implemented other measures to prevent desert development. Starting in the early 2000s, a series of laws were passed to address this issue, aiming to return some agricultural and grazing lands to their forested or grassland state.

Global Efforts to Transform Deserts into Forests

More green cover can mean enhanced food security, increased rainfall, higher yields, reduced soil erosion, and less land degradation. Beyond China, many researchers are interested in technology and reforestation projects. Liquid Nano Clay (LNC), a special sand treatment method that can alter the dry characteristics of sand particles by coating them with clay and allowing them to retain water, was researched by Norwegian scientist Kristian Morten Olesen in 2005. Using this method, any low-quality sand can quickly be transformed into high-yield soil.

In 2018, the Desert Control company founded by Olesen partnered with the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) in Dubai to conduct laboratory and field experiments to demonstrate the potential of LNC in transforming the desert lands of the UAE into lush green areas. Faisal Al Shimmari, an innovator from the UAE, carried out a farming experiment on two plots of land, one treated with LNC and the other without.

The discovery revealed that the treated land with Nano Clay (LNC) consumed only 81 cubic meters of water for crop production compared to 137 cubic meters used in untreated areas. With this initial success, Desert Control is now planning to scale up the production of nano clay to further enhance the desert reforestation process in the UAE, while the UAE government also views LNC as an opportunity to strengthen the country’s food security.

Center-pivot irrigation, an efficient water distribution technique developed by American farmer Frank Zybach in the 1940s, is now widely applied in arid regions such as Libya, India, and the UAE. This system is designed to minimize water loss due to evaporation by combining sprinkler and drip irrigation methods to supply water from the center in a circular pattern.

Over 90% of Egypt’s total land area is desert, but the country is committed to combating desertification and transforming arid land into arable soil. For decades, Egypt has engaged in various reforestation and anti-desertification projects, including the use of nano clay and soil formation through compost. From 1998 to 2020, the Serapium Forest project covered 200 hectares of desert land with trees, utilizing treated wastewater. In the coming years, the country hopes to launch similar projects to create more arable land.

In 2007, 11 countries on the African continent, in collaboration with the African Union, established the Great Green Wall initiative to create an 8,000 km green corridor across Africa by 2030. Under this project, Senegal has managed to restore 800,000 hectares of degraded land, Niger has planted 149 million trees, and Ethiopia has successfully propagated 5.5 billion trees and seedlings for local communities. However, more than half of the project’s progress has only achieved 4% of the targeted area.

Mauji Island, a barren wasteland in Assam (India), has been transformed into a productive forest spanning 550 hectares by Jadav Payeng, known as India’s Forest Man. Jadav began planting trees as a teenager to combat soil erosion and continued to reforest the Mauji area for the next 40 years. Recently, he has partnered with Fundación Azteca, a non-governmental organization aiming to plant 7 million green trees in Mexico in the coming years.

In 2019, the Government of India launched the Indian Great Wall project, a 1,400 km green corridor from Porbandar to Panipat, which aims to restore the country’s arid regions through extensive afforestation. Shyam Sundar Jyani, the winner of the UNCCD’s Land for Life Award in 2021, has planted over 2.5 million green trees in the state of Rajasthan. He plants native species, and his tree-planting campaigns have inspired thousands of villagers to plant trees in various arid regions of Rajasthan.

What if all deserts became lush and fertile?

If all deserts on Earth became fertile, it would cause a range of consequences, both positive and negative, for life on the planet. Food insecurity is a serious global issue today. According to a 2019 United Nations report, approximately 750 million people are currently facing high or severe food shortages. With enough arable land, agriculture could potentially eliminate food insecurity.

Fewer deserts would also mean more land for wildlife and plants, leading to an increase in biodiversity. However, at the same time, the extinction or decline of species living in deserts could lead to ecological imbalances. Deserts play a crucial role in regulating the Earth’s temperature, and their aridity promotes the concentration and formation of useful minerals such as potassium, borates, gypsum, and nitrates.

If all deserts on our planet were to disappear, it could negatively impact the Earth’s climate and pose issues regarding the continuous availability of various minerals. Besides the countless plant and animal species that might not exist without deserts, there are 2.1 billion people who have made arid lands their home and have adapted well to a desert lifestyle. Such communities could struggle to survive without arid land, and they would need to adapt to new ways of living.

Forests have long been viewed as natural systems for absorbing carbon dioxide, meaning that more forests could help reduce global warming. However, while trees absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, they also emit a range of complex chemicals, some of which can warm the planet. Trees with dark leaves may also increase temperatures by absorbing sunlight. A recent study suggests that the warming effect from forests could offset part or all of their cooling potential.

Forests in desert areas could bring more rainfall and increase the availability of fresh water. This would be a tremendous aid to one-fifth of the human population currently facing water scarcity. However, this would also have far-reaching and unknown impacts on the overall climate of the planet. Greening deserts is a challenging task, but experiments conducted in China and other parts of the world on large-scale desert reforestation have raised hopes for a brighter future ahead.