Northwest China's Gansu Province has announced it will spend 1.9
billion yuan (US$253 million) in the next three years to protect
the environment and archaeological treasures at Dunhuang, a Silk
Road city and home to historic Buddhist grottoes.
A man passed by a
desertification area in Yangjiaqiao Village, Duhuang City of Gansu
Province.
The plan, the province's latest endeavor to reverse the
deteriorating environmental situation, listed 20 projects,
including upgrading irrigation facilities, converting croplands to
grasslands and forests, and diverting 120 million cubic meters of
water from the more ample Ha'erteng River to boost water stocks at
the city's dwindling Dang River.
The plan also includes relocation of more than 3,000 people over
the next three years from areas that are threatened by
desertification.
Part of the investment is earmarked for restoring vegetation on
mountains near the Mogao Grottoes, to stabilize its statue
structures and stop desert expansion. The UN-listed world heritage
site known as the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas is home to some of the
world's best examples of ancient Buddhist art, dating back 1,500
years.
This measure is a response to climate warming and
over-exploitation of water resources that have begun threatening
the surrounding environment and cultural relics. Both city and
provincial governments have taken repeated measures to patch up the
battered environment, but efforts are still weak compared with the
rate of ecological degradation.
The Kumtag, China's sixth largest desert, is expanding by one to
four meters eastward every year. Its nearest floating dune is only
five kilometers from Dunhuang. Statistics from the city
hydrological department show underground water levels dropped 10.77
meters from 1975 to 2001, and are still declining by 0.24 meters
every year.
Rivers and lakes in the city have shrunk by 80 percent in the
past 30 years. The water level at Yueyaquan, a crescent-shaped
desert water body, dropped from 7.5 meters in 1960 to only 1.3
meters in 2004.
The dry Danghe River course
in Yangjiaqiao Village, Duhuang City of Gansu Province
(Xinhua News Agency November 6, 2007)
