China's desertification control efforts embrace high-tech solutions

Tang Ximing, chief engineer at the Zhongwei State-owned forestry farm, recalled that with summer ground temperatures as high as 70 degrees Celsius, survival rates of saplings planted in decades ago were just over 40 percent. But the planting efforts have never been baffled.

In 2023, Tang developed an electric drilling device that allows workers to plant saplings into a 50-centimeter-deep layer of moist sand within the checkerboards in under 10 seconds. Previously, even skilled forestry workers needed three to four minutes to dig a single tree pit manually.

Technology is accelerating China's desertification control efforts, which are shifting from labor-intensive planting methods to innovative strategies powered by advanced technologies and intelligent machine fleets.

Ordos city in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region has introduced an integrated smart system that combines remote-controlled desertification monitoring with real-time data from satellite imagery, drone surveys, and ground sensors. This system enables precise tracking of dynamic indicators such as vegetation coverage and soil moisture levels of afforested areas.

Meanwhile, in the green belt surrounding the Hunshandake Sandland -- the nearest desert threat to Beijing -- planting machines continuously shuttle back and forth, laying checkerboards and sowing grass seeds, making desert afforestation as efficient as plowing farmland.

"Creating straw barriers and sowing grass seeds were once two separate manual steps in sand-fixing planting. Now, the new machine combines both processes," said Wang Lei, director of the intelligent equipment research institute of the Inner Mongolia-based M-Grass Ecological Environment (Group) Co., Ltd.

He added that these intelligent devices outperform manual labor by more than 20 times in terms of work efficiency.