Behind the strongest sandstorm: Mongolia struggles between combating desertification and economic development
Author: Money in Little Rock
Experts said that the main cause of this sandstorm in Mongolia was global warming and reduced precipitation. According to pastoral experience, “the pasture is dry when it is dunes and the dust is flying, but as long as there is sufficient precipitation and snowfall, grass will grow.” .
Recently, sand and dust weather that has not been seen for many years has once again swept northern China.
The Central Meteorological Observatory's monitoring shows that this is the most intense sand and dust weather process in my country in the past 10 years.
At a press conference held by the China Meteorological Administration on the 15th on the sandstorm in the north, Zhang Bihui, director of the Environmental Meteorological Center of the China Meteorological Administration, said: "The sand and dust affecting the northern part of my country mainly originated in Mongolia. Due to the strong development of the Mongolian cyclone, the sand and dust As the cold high pressure behind the cyclone moved eastward and southward, it affected most parts of northern my country."
In Mongolia, where the dust originated, the situation may be even more serious.
In its latest report at 17:00 on March 15th, the General Administration of Emergency Situations of Mongolia stated that the number of deaths due to severe sandstorms and snowstorms in the past two days has risen to 10, and 11 people are still missing.
In an interview with a reporter from China Business News, a researcher from the Mongolian Research Center of Inner Mongolia University, who asked not to be named, said that the main cause of the sandstorm was global warming and reduced precipitation. According to pastoral experience, "grassland drought" At that time, it was a sand dune, and the dust was flying, but as long as there was sufficient precipitation and snowfall, grass would grow."
Sandstorm weather is a severely polluted weather phenomenon that transcends national borders.
Coincidentally, starting on the 12th, a strong sandstorm also swept the Persian Gulf region in the Middle East.
According to news photos and social media videos, in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, part of the sky is orange-red and visibility is only a few meters.
The local health department in Saudi Arabia has issued a warning and advised people with respiratory diseases not to go out.
Desertification is getting worse
Meteorological experts said that the intensity and duration of this strong sandstorm in Mongolia are longer than in previous years.
Since the 13th, wind speeds in parts of Mongolia have reached 20 to 24 meters per second, and sometimes 30 to 34 meters per second; snowstorms and snow and ice have formed in the northern areas; strong sandstorms have formed in the Gobi grasslands.
Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, was also hit by a strong sandstorm on the 14th.
At the opening ceremony of the National Great Hural Spring Meeting held on the 15th, the chairman of the Mongolian National Great Hural, Zaandam Shatar, said that the extreme weather on the 14th put many provinces in the country into a state of natural disasters and appealed to herdsmen. Provide emergency rescue.
In Mongolia, the increasingly serious natural environmental disasters are an indisputable fact.
Mongolia is China’s land neighbor and one of the most severely desertified countries in the world. More than 70% of its land has undergone desertification and desertification to varying degrees, and desertification is still spreading at a relatively rapid rate in some areas.
Some experts believe that global warming and higher average temperatures in Mongolia have led to increased evaporation of water resources, which is one of the reasons for Mongolia's desertification.
According to estimates, in the past 80 years, the country’s climate has been warming at a rate of more than three times the world’s average rate of warming, and its forest coverage has been reduced by more than two times compared to the 1950s.
At the same time, since animal husbandry is an important industry in Mongolia, overgrazing is also a major reason for the degradation of pastures and the entry of deserts.
According to the data released by the United Nations Development Program in January 2021, the number of livestock in Mongolia has reached 70.9 million by 2019, which is 33 million more than the total carrying capacity of the pasture. The number of grazing animals in different regions has reached 2~ the environmental carrying capacity of the pasture. 7 times.
In addition, the disorderly mining of mineral resources and other human factors have exacerbated the process of grassland desertification.
Experts warned that the average temperature in Mongolia is still rising. If the combat against desertification does not work sufficiently, the rest of Mongolia will face serious desertification threats, except for a few areas.
In the face of increasingly severe desertification, the Mongolian government has long been vigilant. In 1996, in conjunction with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, it adopted a national program for combating desertification and proposed to reduce the area of desertified land by 10.2% by 2030 while reducing the country’s area 30% of it is included in the scope of national nature reserves.
Air quality has improved
However, when CBN reporters stood on the heights of Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, in the winter of 2016, they could clearly observe that the entire city was covered with a gray "lid."
This is not a short-term phenomenon.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Ulaanbaatar is one of the most polluted cities in the world, especially in winter.
According to the WHO, the main feature of air pollution in Ulaanbaatar is the high concentration of particulate matter, including various substances such as sulfate and carbon black.
After checking the IQAir global air quality data platform, a reporter from China Business News found that Ulaanbaatar’s average PM2.5 value in winter was over 100, especially in January, with an average PM2.5 value of 142.
The minimum temperature in Ulaanbaatar in winter can be as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius, the winter time is more than 6 months, and the heating period is as long as 8 months.
More than half of Ulaanbaatar citizens live in shanty towns in the north of the city, where there are basically no central heating facilities. Residents rely on yurts or simple houses to burn wood and coal for heating, resulting in a choking smell in the air throughout the city.
In a policy brief issued by the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific in 2018, it was pointed out that 80% of Ulaanbaatar’s winter air pollution was caused by the burning of raw coal in households and low-pressure boilers in the yurt area.
In order to control the increasing air pollution, the Mongolian government has decided to ban the use of raw coal in Ulaanbaatar from May 15, 2019.
The government will put processed coal into the market, which also means that the economic burden on users will increase.
However, in an interview with a reporter from China Business News, the aforementioned researchers said that this policy has achieved results, and Ulaanbaatar's winter air quality has improved significantly.