China and Mongolia are joining forces to build an ecological security barrier to combat desertification and sandstorms, which may involve an expansion of the Chinese “Great Green Wall” across their shared border.
The project is the latest in joint efforts to help slow the spread of desertification in the Mongolian Plateau.
With nearly 80 per cent of Mongolian land degraded, the country’s battle with desertification has consequences that extend beyond its borders, posing challenges for the wider East Asian region.
The Gobi Desert, spanning a vast swathe of northern and northeastern China and parts of southern Mongolia, is a key source of sand and dust for sandstorms that have become increasingly severe in recent years, driven by stronger winds and growing desertification.
In 2021, China had its worst sandstorm in a decade as yellow sand and dust blanketed a dozen northern provinces, leading to soaring pollution levels and several deaths.
In recent decades, Beijing has launched massive reforestation and sand-control efforts to halt the spread of the Gobi Desert, which is the largest in Asia.
The project, also known as China’s “Great Green Wall”, has reduced sandstorms originating within the country’s borders.
However, severe sandstorms influenced by conditions in Mongolia have revealed that the efforts may need to be taken across the border to prove more effective.
In June, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Mongolian Academy of Sciences (MAS) met in Ulaanbaatar to discuss the “joint construction of an ecological security barrier between China and Mongolia”.
“Dramatic climate change, coupled with increased disasters and ecological risks such as sandstorms, has not only had a significant ecological impact on Mongolia but also posed a serious ecological threat to [China] through cross-border transmission,” the CAS Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research said on its website.
As part of the trip, experts from both countries conducted field research “in key areas of ecological barrier construction” in Mongolia’s central Govisümber province, including visiting jointly designed experimental bases for desertification control.
The expedition and meetings helped to “facilitate cooperation between China and Mongolia in the joint construction of ecological security barriers, climate change response, desertification and sandstorm control, and green development”, according to the CAS institute.
The efforts will be led by the CAS institute along with MAS’ Institute of Geography and Geoecology.
The South China Morning Post has contacted the coordinators at both academies for comment.
About 77 per cent of Mongolia’s land is classified as degraded as a result of unsustainable pasture practices, overgrazing and climate change, according to the United Nations.
Meanwhile, rising temperatures and decreasing rainfall across Mongolia have led to widespread droughts and desertification, and this trend is only expected to continue under the influence of climate change.
To tackle this, Mongolia has rolled out more than a dozen environmental protection plans and hundreds of projects over the past decade.
But these have had limited success in halting desertification, according to a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Land in April last year.
The authors from the CAS Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography noted that while desertification in China had decreased between 2000 and 2020, it continued to expand in Mongolia during the same period.
Because of strong, cyclone-driven winds as well as dry sand and soil conditions, Mongolia has dozens of sandstorms every year, with the most severe occurring in the spring and early summer.
These wind patterns can form large, violent sandstorms that affect Mongolia and China and can even reach as far as the Korean peninsula.
In addition to the severe sandstorms across East Asia in 2021, those in 2023 affected 18 Chinese provinces and municipalities as far south as Hunan province.
China itself has long battled desertification and sandstorms in its northern regions.
In the 1970s, it launched the “Three North Shelterbelt Forest Programme” to stabilise parts of the Gobi Desert, including a network of thousands of kilometres of forests and shrubs. China’s “Green Great Wall” has helped to reduce sandstorms in the capital.
In addition, Beijing has launched several megaprojects as part of its wider initiative, including surrounding the country’s largest desert – the Taklamakan Desert in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region – with a 3,050km (1,900-mile) sand belt of trees, shrubs, straw grids and solar panels.
Earlier this year, a 1,856km sand control belt spanning three deserts in the westernmost part of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region was completed.
While these efforts have succeeded in holding back the expansion of dunes, they are a massive years-long undertaking.
China has also lent its anti-desertification expertise to the construction of Africa’s own Great Green Wall, which stretches 7,700km across the southern edge of the Sahara Desert.
Closer to home, a number of Chinese institutes have been involved in projects in Mongolia since 2017. This includes a 27-hectare dune stabilisation and vegetation recovery project in the country’s northern Bulgan province, according to state broadcaster CGTN.
Several other projects, including monitoring grassland, desertification control and tree and shrub planting, have been implemented in the years since.
In 2023, the China-Mongolia Desertification Prevention and Control Cooperation Centre was established in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar.
CAS said the centre was launched to support the sharing of China’s “established afforestation, grass planting and sand control techniques and models in Mongolia”.
By Victoria Bela
Prior to joining SCMP in 2023, Victoria received her Bachelor’s degrees in Environmental Health and Environmental Studies from the University of Rochester, where she also worked in a Biochemistry lab. She holds a Master's in Public Policy from Peking University.

Published Date:2025-08-25