In 1978, China began a windbreak afforestation project to prevent the expansion of the Taklamakan Desert.
And in November 2024, approximately 3,000km of windbreak forest surrounding the Taklamakan Desert was finally completed.
As a result of this afforestation project, the desert area has decreased from 27.2% to 26.8% over the past 10 years, so the project appears to have been very successful.
However, the approximately 78 billion trees planted through afforestation projects have a very significant impact on the climate in northern China.
This is something we usually learn in school, but trees absorb moisture from the ground through their roots and evaporate it through their leaves through transpiration.
So, we have a situation where 78 billion pumps are constantly extracting water from the ground.
And the water vapor pulled out of the ground like this does not stay in place and turns into rain clouds.
Moving to the distant Tibetan Plateau according to the atmospheric flow.
Eventually, a lot of water flowed into the Tibetan Plateau, increasing the available water in the region.
In eastern and northwestern China, available water has decreased significantly.
The top image visualizes the results of data analysis from 2010 to 2020.
In particular, northwest China suffered the greatest damage as a significant amount of water leaked into Tibet.
These changes are quite widespread, with 74% of China’s total land area facing water shortages.
It is ironic that the green barrier built in the desert is becoming the cause of a new desert.