Large Scale Oasis to be Constructed at the Source of Yellow Dust Cloud in Inner Mongolia

Xinhua News Agency reported on the 23rd that China undertook the ambitious project to construct an artificial oasis, which covers two thirds of Hong Kong` space, at the source of yellow dust cloud in order to prevent the dust cloud.

Xinhua News reported that Chinese government already invested 100 million Yuan (around 16 billion won) in building irrigation network by attracting a stream of the Huang Ho River to the source of dust cloud, and plans to develop a new town around the artificial oasis in the desert by moving 20,000 residents by 2012.

▽Source of outsized sand storms = China is constructing an artificial oasis in the southern part of Alxa desert in Nei Monggol, which is known as the source of sand storms. This fourth-largest desert, which lies near to Gansusheng and Ningxia Huizu autonomous region, which is known as the source of super large sand storms named `dust storm`. Chinese environment experts say that one fourth of yellow dust clouds in the spring, or half of dust storms are known flown from this desert. An official of Chinese meteorological observatory said, “the dust storms created in the Alxa desert area are most powerful. ”

Dust storms, largest scale yellow dust clouds, are divided by the visibility range into 3 kinds of dust storm, whose visibility range is within 1 km, strong dust storm, within 500 m, and ultra strong dust storm, within 50 m.

▽Artificial oasis construction plan = Chinese government plans to prevent the creation of large scale yellow dust clouds by constructing an oasis of 70,000 ha area and new town in the source of dust storms.

Undertaking the irrigation network turning the stream of Huang Ho river, which flows by 40 km apart to the southern part of Alxa desert, to the desert last year, Chinese government moved 5,000 residents of vicinities of the desert including Nei Monggol to the settlement oasis. When this project is succeeded, this town in the desert will be the largest artificial oasis town in the history.

Chinese government judged that it should not ignore the rapid desertification any more, and decided to construct an artificial oasis. An official of Chinese meteorological observatory said, “more frequent dust storms in the 1990s are resulted from the rapid desertification in the northwestern part of China. ”

China is known that 2.62 million square kilometers or 27.3 percent of the whole country is desert already, and the land of 2469 square kilometers, which is four times as large as Seoul, become desert every year.

ljhzip@donga.com