The Research Team of Ecological Engineering of Tarim Desert Highway Won the Name of Advanced Team of Chinese of Academy of Sciences

Recently, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in order to further encourage researchers to engage in active scientific and technological innovation, commended the advanced teams and excellent individuals. Research Team of Ecological Engineering of Tarim Desert Highway, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography was included in the list of 15 advanced teams.

The Tarim Desert Highway, also known as the Cross-Desert Highway (CDH), crosses through the Taklimakan D esert from north to south. The highway links the counties of Luntai and Minfeng on the northern and southern margins of the Tarim Basin. The total length of the highway is 552 km and approximately 446 km of the highway cross through an uninhabited area covered by mobile sand dunes, making it become the longest highway across mobile sand dune area in the world. Based on the study and demonstration of the research team for more than 10 years, the ecological shelterbelt along the highway has been established. This ‘green corridor’ was selected as Scientific and Technological Progress of China's 10 Top News by academicians in 2006. The “Ecological Engineering of Tarim Desert Highway” was awarded as the 10 Top Environment-friendly Engineering in 2008.

  The research team resolved the technical problems of preventing the shifting sands from covering the highway and irrigating the shelterbelt of using salt water, which enlarge the research fields of the sand control technology, water resources utilization and ecological construction in arid land.