The strongest sandstorm in the past ten years has swept across 12 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in northern my country
Sand control takes a long time
On March 15th, 12 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities including Xinjiang, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and Beijing experienced obvious dusty weather. The visibility was about 1 km and the local area was less than 300 meters.
According to the monitoring data of the Beijing Ecological Environment Monitoring Center, the PM10 concentration in most areas of Beijing exceeds 2000 micrograms per cubic meter, and the Haidian Sijiqing Station reaches 3572 micrograms per cubic meter.
The strongest sandstorm in the past ten years has sounded the alarm for us: To solve global ecological and climate problems, we need to do our own affairs well, and unswervingly take the ecological priority and green development-oriented high quality The development path also requires strengthening international cooperation, sharing China's experience in combating desertification with the world, and conspiring to build a global ecological civilization.
This sand and dust mainly originated in Mongolia, and it was the strongest sandstorm in the past ten years.
According to the national standard "Sand and Dust Storm Weather Levels", the level of sand and dust weather is mainly classified according to the visibility of the ground level at the time of the sand and dust weather, which is divided into five levels, namely, floating dust, blowing sand, sand storm, strong sand storm and extra strong sand storm.
This sandstorm has reached the level of a strong sandstorm weather process.
"The impact of this process is very large, including Northwest and North China. In terms of intensity, it is the strongest sandstorm process in the past ten years." Zhang Bihui, director of the Environmental Meteorological Center of China Meteorological Administration, introduced.
What are the reasons for the resurgence of sandstorms?
According to reports, the sand and dust affecting northern my country mainly originated in Mongolia.
Since March 13, most of Mongolia's provinces have experienced severe sandstorms and blizzards.
Due to the strong development of the Mongolian cyclone, the sand and dust moved eastward and southward along with the cold high pressure behind the cyclone and affected most of the northern part of my country.
Zhang Bihui said that there are two main reasons for this sandstorm. On the one hand, under the underlying surface conditions, the temperature in Mongolia, including the northwestern region, was significantly higher in the early stage, generally higher than 5 to 8 degrees Celsius, and most parts of Mongolia have had little precipitation recently. , The surface conditions are more prone to sand and dust weather; on the other hand, affected by the relatively strong Mongolian cyclone, there have been 6 to 8 gusts from northern Xinjiang, central and western Gansu, most of Inner Mongolia, and northern North China, which are dusty weather. Provides good thermal and power conditions.
It is understood that the annual average (average from 1981 to 2010) of sand and dust days at the Beijing Observatory in March was 2.4 days, with a maximum of 12 days (1954), and a maximum of 9 days since 2000, which occurred in 2001.
The most recent sandstorm occurred on April 15, 2015.
According to Peng Yingdeng, a researcher at the National Urban Environmental Pollution Control Technology Research Center, Beijing has dusty weather every spring, but the intensity is different.
"In the past, local sand blowing in Beijing was also very severe. When a wind blows, the sand and gravel pits and bare farmland in Beijing will be dusted up. In the past ten years, Beijing's local treatment of waste beaches and bare land has achieved obvious results. Beijing. There is also local local blowing sand, but it is relatively weak." Peng Yingdeng said.
It can be seen from the year-by-year distribution of the sand-dust process that sand-dust disasters have shown a weakening trend in recent years
"The causes of sandstorms are complex. The source of sand and dust is the material basis, strong winds are the dynamic conditions, and unstable air conditions are important local thermal conditions." Chai Fahe, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences and deputy director of the National Center for Air Pollution Prevention and Control Tell reporters.
Data show that sandstorms in my country mainly occur in the area north of the Yellow River.
As early as the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century, there were records of sandstorms in Beijing.
From the Ming and Qing Dynasties to the Republic of China, sandstorms continued to develop.
The dust in Beijing was the most severe in the 1950s, with an average annual number of dust days of nearly 70 days, of which the number of days meeting the level of dust storms reached 5 days.
"I haven't seen such a big dust storm for many years." The reason why the dust weather was "screened" on the whole network this time also shows from the side: In recent years, the number of similar weather occurrences in the north seems to be decreasing.
Judging from the statistical results, this is indeed the case.
Since 1961, my country's sand and dust weather has shown an obvious downward trend.
From the year-on-year distribution of the sand-dust process since 2000, it can be seen that sand-dust disasters have been weakening in recent years.
According to the China Meteorological Administration's "2019 Atmospheric Environment and Meteorological Bulletin", from 2011 to 2019, sand and dust storms decreased significantly compared with previous years, with an average of less than two per year. There were only one occurrence in 5 years, and the annual average of strong sand and dust storms was 1.1. .
To control sandstorms, vegetation restoration is one of the important methods.
Since 2000, the proportion of land areas prone to sand and dust in northern my country has shown a downward trend as a whole. The proportion of land areas that are highly and highly prone to sand and dust has dropped from 48.1% in 2000 to 41.9% in 2019; mild and difficult to rise. The proportion of sand and dust area increased from 30.3% in 2000 to 39.6% in 2019, indicating that the high and dust-prone land in northern my country is gradually transitioning to moderate, light and not easy to generate sand and dust, and vegetation prevents wind and sand fixation. The ecological function has been significantly improved.
From 2000 to 2019, precipitation in the vegetation growing season in northern my country showed an increasing trend, with an average annual increase of 2.3 mm; the average temperature increase was 0.28°C every 10 years.
Increased precipitation and increased heat are beneficial to vegetation growth and ecological restoration. In addition, the implementation of a series of ecological projects such as the management of wind and sand sources, the Three-North Shelter Forest, and the conversion of farmland to forests and grasses have greatly promoted the improvement of vegetation coverage and the effects of vegetation on surface soils. The anti-wind erosion effect is significantly enhanced.
Monitoring data from the State Forestry and Grassland Administration show that since 2004, the area of desertified and desertified land in China has maintained a downward trend for three consecutive monitoring periods: the area of desertified land has expanded from an average annual expansion of 10,400 square kilometers at the end of the last century to the current annual average. A reduction of 2,424 square kilometers; the area of desertified land has expanded from an average annual expansion of 3436 square kilometers at the end of the last century to a current average annual reduction of 1,980 square kilometers.
The vegetation status and carbon sequestration capacity in the sandy areas have improved, and the regional wind erosion conditions and windy sand weather have also declined.
China's major ecological projects are rare in the world for their long planning period, wide coverage, and large investment intensity
There are four major sandy lands in my country: Mu Us, Hunshandake, Hulun Buir, and Horqin. They are located in the northern sand belt of the national ecological security barrier "two screens and three belts". The total area is 114,200 square kilometers, mainly distributed in Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, and Shaanxi. Jilin, Hebei, Liaoning, Ningxia and other places.
After years of management, the four sandy land forests and grass vegetation have increased by 2.267 million hectares, and the desertified land has decreased by 169,000 hectares. The average vegetation coverage has reached 43.62%, 42.68%, 38.24% and 68.27%, respectively, achieving overall ecological improvement.
Behind this achievement is China's long-term huge human and material investment——
"Since 1978, my country has successively implemented a series of major ecological projects, with a cumulative investment of more than 1 trillion yuan, which has greatly improved the country’s ecological conditions." The scope and investment are rare in the world.
For example, in the Three North Engineering Area, the area of desertified land has been reduced by 1,183 square kilometers annually.
In the Beijing-Tianjin sandstorm source project area, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Hebei, and Beijing have built 6 ecological protection forest belts and forest belts...
China is one of the countries most seriously affected by desertification in the world.
Starting from the Tarim Basin in the west to the west of the Songnen Plain in the east, this 10,000-mile sandy belt contains eight deserts, four sands, and the vast Gobi, which account for about 85% of the country’s aeolian sandy land area.
Who would have thought that after the continuous efforts of generations, people can see with joy through remote sensing image maps that the moving green in the yellow sands of northern China is connecting one spot after another from the past!
"One-quarter of the world's new green areas come from China!" According to an international study based on satellite data, about one-quarter of the world's newly added green areas from 2000 to 2017 came from China, which ranks first in the world.
A considerable part of it comes from the greening of the land in the sandy area.
This historical change from "sand advancement and retreat" to "green advancement and sand retreat" was not easy to come by.
The Three North Shelterbelt Project, which took shape in 1978, created a precedent for the construction of forestry ecological projects in my country.
For more than 40 years, thanks to the efforts of several generations and hundreds of millions of people, the Three North Project has built a long green line of defense in the northern borders of my country, with Saihanba in Hebei, Youyu in Shanxi, and Kubuqi in Inner Mongolia on the line. A batch of successful models of planting and protecting green.
Not only that, in 1999, Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces took the lead in carrying out pilot projects for returning farmland to forests, which opened the prelude to my country's returning farmland to forests.
After the devastating flood in 1998, the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River became the main battlefield for returning farmland to forests and grasslands. The state provided grain and living allowances and subsidies for planting and afforestation to farmers who had returned from farming.
For more than 20 years, 41 million farmers in my country have participated in the implementation of the project of returning farmland to forests and grasslands, and 158 million farmers have benefited from this.
According to statistics, during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, more than 10 million hectares of sand prevention and control tasks have been completed nationwide, and 1.3 million hectares of rocky desertification control have been completed.
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the national land greening target is basically determined, and we strive to achieve 57% of the grassland comprehensive vegetation coverage by 2025, and 60% of the desertified land can be controlled.
The world's desertification prevention and control look at China.
United Nations Secretary-General Guterres commented: China has taken the lead in achieving “zero growth” in land degradation worldwide, and “double reduction” in the area of desertified and desertified land, making a huge contribution to the global realization of the United Nations 2030 goal of zero growth in land degradation.
Desertification prevention and control has entered the stage of "biting hard bones". It is more difficult to control, more costly, and more arduous. We must work harder.
"People work hard, and heaven helps." In recent years, the environmental protection department has attributed this to the continuous improvement of the atmospheric environment.
In fact, as a natural phenomenon, sandstorms cannot be eliminated by human efforts.
"Dust storms are a kind of meteorological disaster, mainly affected by atmospheric circulation. Humans cannot eliminate sand storms in a short period of time, but ecological restoration measures can be used to improve the vegetation coverage of the underlying surface and alleviate its harm." Researcher, Institute of Ecology, Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences Lu Shihai told reporters.
Deserts are part of the earth's ecosystem. Sand control is not about "eliminating deserts", but on the basis of respecting science and observing the laws of nature to control man-made desertified land.
It will take a long time for sand control to prevent sand.
my country's desertification and desertification land area has a large base and wide influence.
At present, desertification prevention and control has entered the stage of "biting hard bones". It is more difficult to control, more costly, and more arduous, and we must work harder.
In response to two high-intensity and wide-ranging sand-dust weather processes in the northern region since 2021, Chai Fahe suggested: “First, continue to promote the protection of key sand sources in the northern region and formulate industry access policies for grassland ecologically fragile areas. Reduce the disturbance and destruction of grassland vegetation caused by human activities, and further reduce the frequency of endogenous sand and dust weather; second, strengthen the construction of transboundary sand and dust weather response mechanisms, and establish Sino-Mongolian land desertification and sand and dust weather joint monitoring and cooperative research Mechanism to improve the early warning and emergency response capabilities of regional land desertification and weather."
The international community should join hands to promote global environmental governance, and naturally seek happiness and well-being for the people with harmony and beauty.
Someone asked: Why has it not been able to stop the strongest sandstorm in the past ten years after investing huge manpower and material resources to prevent and control sand for so many years?
In fact, the sandstorm problem has long been internationalized.
When the desert spreads day by day, not only China, but other countries are also affected by sandstorms.
The extreme sandstorm encountered by Mongolia is closely related to land degradation.
Climate change, unreasonable use of pastures, mineral development and biological populations and other factors have caused the country to face a serious threat of desertification.
According to the United Nations, 1.5 billion people in the world will be threatened by land degradation in the future, that is, 1 in 5 people will be a victim.
The global desertification area is nearly 36 million square kilometers, 900 million people are affected by the desert, and more than 150 countries and regions are directly or indirectly facing the threat of land degradation.
Sandstorms can cross borders without requiring a passport.
Whether it is a sandstorm or other international environmental problems, it is not just a country that is affected, and environmental problems can be managed far beyond the power of a single country.
Although China's "forest" cannot stop the global "sand", China's experience can help govern the global "sand".
In almost all international cooperation mechanisms involving ecological protection, China has been earnestly fulfilling its responsibilities.
In the past five years, my country has actively participated in the promotion of the international process of combating desertification.
In 2017, the 13th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification was held in China. China promoted the process of the convention and promoted the adoption of the "2018-2030 Strategic Framework".
China successfully hosted the global commemoration of the World Day for Desertification and Drought Prevention and the "Belt and Road" Joint Action for Desertification High-level Dialogue, Kubuqi International Desert Forum, Bureau Meeting and other important events, and released the "Belt and Road" Joint Action Initiative for Desertification Prevention and Control ".
In June 2020, the implementation office of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification of the People's Republic of China was officially opened.
China’s practice has fully proved that ecology itself is economy, and protection of ecology is the development of productive forces.
Green development benefits the country and the people, and merits the future. This path is correct, and we must unswervingly follow it.
China's unremitting efforts in ecological governance have also prescribed a "Chinese prescription" for the world, which urgently needs global cooperation.
Mankind has only one home on the earth, and desertification prevention is a great cause related to the sustainable development of mankind.
Strengthening international cooperation in desertification prevention and control, and jointly building a beautiful home with blue sky, green ground and clear water is the mission entrusted to contemporary people by reality and the future.
The international community should work together to promote global environmental governance and, naturally, to seek happiness and well-being for the people with harmony and beauty.
(Our reporter Li Yunshu Guan Xiaopu)