China News: Sandstorms | China Digital Times (CDT)

China news tagged with: sandstorms (25)

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Showcase: Shifting Sands
The New York Times Lens blog has posted a slideshow of desertification in China:
[Sean] Gallagher traveled to the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in northern China to document the rapid advance of its deserts. The sandstorm offered a visual feast for a young photographer. For the residents, however, it was an all-too-common occurrence. Sandstorms have forced the relocation of 200,000 people to Hongsibao, a new city built from scratch by the government. “China spent vast amounts of money on this environmental refugee town that I photographed, on a massive relocation project and on trying to reclaim the land,” Mr. Gallagher said. “The problem is that — because of the size of China — the issue is so vast. Even for an organization like the Chinese Communist Party, it’s a big project.”
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- December 8, 2009 1:16 PM
The Chinese Dust Bowl
The Canadian magazine The Walrus has a lengthy article looking at the desertification of China:
To date, Chinese farmers and herders have transformed about 400,000 square kilometres of cropland and verdant prairie into new deserts. The shepherds have overgrazed the steppes, allowing their sheep and goats to chew the grass all the way down to its roots. The farmers, for their part, have over-exploited the arable land by opening fragile grasslands to cultivation and over-pumping rivers and aquifers in the oases bordering the ancient deserts. The area of desert thus created is equivalent to more than half the farmland in Canada.
The soil, once it is barren, is swept up by the wind into dust storms, battering the capital, Beijing, and then moving on to Korea and Japan. The most massive of the yellow clouds of dust make their way across the Pacific and reach North America. The loss of precious topsoil for Chinese agriculture ends up polluting both China’s cities and countries halfway around the world.
The North American “dust bowl” of the 1930s forced three million farmers to abandon their land in the Midwest and the Canadian prairies. But the Chinese exodus could reach well into the tens of millions. Governmental relocation programs for ecological refugees are already in full swing.
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- June 2, 2008 10:40 PM
Reign of Sand: Inner Mongolia
A compelling multimedia project from Circle of Blue reports on the freshwater crisis in Inner Mongolia, where desertification threatens not only its startlingly beautiful steppes, but its nomadic residents’ way of life. According to the Pacific Institute:
“It’s much more than a landscape surrendering to the sand,” says J. Carl Ganter, director of Circle of Blue, the journalism-based news, science and collaborative project covering water issues worldwide. “We’re looking at a crucial international economic and environmental story that has implications for us all.”
As China prepares for the Summer Olympic Games in August, international focus on its air pollution is increasing. The main target is to reduce urban smog from car and coal emissions, but China’s sand storms are an equal threat to air quality and human health. They are often driven by 80 mile-per-hour winds that last for days. These storms, along with the water shortages and the land degradation causing them, underscore the extreme stress that China’s economic development is putting on its environment and its 1.3 billion people.
“Reign of Sand” comes as China’s spring dust storms approach. Scientists say the severity and frequency of the dust storms reflect worsening conditions: Dryer climate, stronger winds, water shortages, over-grazing, population growth, and a clash between nomadic herders and the government over range and farmland management.
The preview video below offers a hint of the full online package, which documents the situation through an interactive map, video and photo galleries, as well as feature articles.
See more China Digital Times coverage of China’s environmental crisis.
Photo: Palani Mohan, Getty Images, for Circle of Blue
Video: Eric Daigh, for Circle Blue
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- February 12, 2008 9:14 PM
Revitalizing China’s Dust Bowl – Mara Hvistendah
From The World Changing blog:
Western China is turning into a massive dust bowl. Desertification now affects fully one-third of the world’s population — and what’s happening in Western China represents the largest conversion of productive land to desert anywhere in the world, consuming over one million acres of land each year. The dust isn’t confined to the west: every spring, massive sandstorms roar through Beijing, blanketing the city with tons of dust.
The October issue of the Canadian magazine The Walrus has an excellent feature by Patrick Alleyn on efforts to combat desertification in China (subscription-only, but 10-day trials are available). Benoit Aquin’s startling photos, which accompany the article, have been circulating on Chinese bulletin boards. [Full Text]
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- October 8, 2007 9:30 PM
Slideshow: Desertification and Sandstorms in China – Wenxuecity
Desertification in China is a pressing environmental challenge. Here is some alarming data, from AFP:

“China has raised the environmental alarm bell after a survey found over a quarter of its land has become desert, with much of the damage caused by human activity. Desertification has affected 28 per cent of China’s land mass, with 18 per cent of the country turning to waste through the effects of overgrazing, deforestation and other ravages, the China Daily said, citing a State Forestry Administration survey. The report followed another survey last week which showed soil erosion affected 37 per cent of China’s land”.

And here are some images of villages, houses, towns and cities in sandstorms, caused by the increasingly severe desertification, from the popular overseas Chinese BBS: wenxueciti.com:

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- October 5, 2007 9:47 PM
Sandstorms Sweep Away Parts Of China’s Great Wall – Chris Gill
From The Guardian:
The Great Wall of China , built to withstand raiding hordes from the steppes, is now in peril from a far more insidious threat: sandstorms generated by desertification in the country’s north-west.
The Great Wall of China, built to withstand raiding hordes from the steppes, is now in peril from a far more insidious threat: sandstorms generated by desertification in the country’s north-west. The wall was built over several dynasties and despite its failure to prevent invasions, it has become a national symbol. Each dynasty favoured different construction methods, and a 40-mile section built during the Han dynasty , which used mostly packed earth bricks, is now being swept away. [Full Text]
[Image: A man walks past the remains of the western-most tower of the Great Wall of China, by Greg Baker from AP.]
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- August 30, 2007 2:15 PM
Sandstorms Eating Away at China’s Great Wall – AP
AP warns that the western sections of China’s Great Wall encountered the damage and “may disappear entirely in 20 years.” From MSNBC:
…”Frequent storms not only eroded the mud, but also cracked the wall and caused it to collapse or break down,” Xinhua quoted archaeologist Zhou Shengrui as saying.
One of the most threatened sections of the wall runs through Minqin county in Gansu province along the ancient Silk Road trade route. Unlike the better-known stone and brick sections around Beijing, the wall in Gansu is made of less-resilient packed earth that easily erodes….[Full Text]
[Image: Hikers walk on a crumbling section of the Great Wall north of Beijing, via MSNBC]
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- August 29, 2007 2:10 PM
Video: Stephen Colbert and the Chinese goats – Danwei
Danwei carried an interview video with Evan Osnos who is the Beijing bureau chief of the Chicago Tribune, from the Colbert Report on Comedy Central. Danwei says that “Evan Osnos recently won the Asia Society’s Osborn Elliott Prize for distinguished journalism for a series of articles about China’s Great Grab, subtitled ‘how China’s exploding appetite for natural resources is reshaping the world.” [Click to see]
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- August 22, 2007 3:56 AM
Behold, Mother Nature’s Fury! – Michael D. Manning

Would you believe that these two pictures were taken from exactly the same spot, only eleven minutes apart? From the The Opposite End of China blog:
How much sand could a sandstorm storm if a sandstorm could storm sand?
Well, I received quite a vivid and colorful answer yesterday morning as I was preparing to leave Korla for a quick business trip to Kasghar. [Full Text]
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- May 1, 2007 2:48 PM
Korea: Dust from China – YouTube
Dust Storms from China? The filmer says so. From YouTube:
This incredible site, filmed during a level 4 dust storm from China

More below:
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- April 13, 2007 3:41 PM
Stopping The Sandstorms – Gaoming Jiang
From ChinaDialogue.org:
Beijing is choking as dust sweeps in from China’s arid, ecologically-degraded west. Gaoming Jiang investigates, and finds that efforts to restore the western grasslands are failing.
In Beijing, the weather forecast says that more sandstorms are on the way. The capital was hit by four sandstorms in March, and even Shanghai was recently smothered by dust clouds from the north. Television reports now describe these events as “sandy weather”, rather than “sandstorms”. But whatever you call them, they are becoming ever more frequent visitors to Beijing in springtime.
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- April 13, 2007 12:13 PM
Photo Series: The Most “Timely” Sandstorm in China
From Lian Yue’s Eighth Continent:
1. Pan Yue (holding the microphone), vice minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), is speaking during a tree planting event:
2. Suddenly, a sandstorm attacks Pan and SEPA minister (front left):
3. As the sandstorm gets stronger, Pan Yue can’t help covering his nose and the minister even cannot open his eyes. But the audience still insist applauding for Pan’s speech:
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- April 4, 2007 11:50 PM
Sandstorm Hits Northern China – Xinhua
From Xinhua via China.org:
The Chinese capital was blanketed by floating dust from Friday night on. This year’s first sandstorm should be cleared up in the city till Saturday night, says the China Meteorological Administration (CMA).
The floating dust was brought in by a cyclone developed in Mongolia, which moved eastward through Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Hebei Province into the city, Sun Jun, a CMA senior engineer said.
The main body of the cyclone is expected to reach Beijing around Saturday noon, but the strong wind should help drive the floating dust away, according to Sun….[Full Text]
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- March 31, 2007 9:43 AM
Global Warming Takes Toll on Nation – Sun Xiaohua
From China Daily:

Global warming has caused China to experience its second warmest winter in 50 years. It has also caused sandstorms, heavy fog and severe drought.
The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) said yesterday the winter season from December 2006 to February 2007 recorded a national average temperature of -2.4 C, following the warmest winter in the country between 1998 and 1999, with an average temperature of -2.3 C…
On Wednesday, wind gusts from a sandstorm derailed a train in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, leaving three dead and more than 30 people injured. [Full Text]
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- March 1, 2007 10:55 PM
Photo: a dust storm in Beijing this Spring, from justso.blog.com.cn

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- August 11, 2006 8:38 PM