February 1, 2008 -- The Asian Development Bank is working a western China anti-desertification project, estimated to cost up to US$150 million.

Manila-based Asian Development Bank [ADB] partnered with the State Forestry Administration of China [SFA] on the Silk Road Ecosystem Restoration project, designed to prevent degradation and desertification in Tibet and the Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.

"The project was basically formulated last year, as one of the long term customized projects of ADB in China," Christopher Edmonds, ADB's rural development economist and project team leader, told Emerging China. Edmonds estimates that the total cost of the project will be between US$ 100 million (718 million yuan) and US$ 150 million (1.1 billion yuan).

The drylands of western China cover about 40 percent of the country and contain some of the most severely degraded land in the country and in the world, according to an ADB technical report.

"The proposed project area covers districts and counties selected from some of the worst affected, poorer parts of Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region," the report said.

The ADB has formed a special team for this project, involving the local government municipalities and the SFA. The project is expect to commence in 2009, after preparation is complete and necessary approvals have been obtained, according to ADB's Edmonds.

He also added that ADB is also working on getting external grand financing from the Global Environment Facility, an independent financial organization which provides grants to developing countries for environmental projects.

"When it comes to the economic development in the western and central China, the poverty issue is well understood," he said. "But the extent of the environmental challenges facing in these areas is probably less well-known -- and is very severe."

Through the execution of the project, ADB is seeking certain opportunities for livelihood improvement and the improvement on environmental impact of the agricultural activity, he said.

In addition, ADB is active in supporting various urban development initiatives in western cities as well, including the Xinjiang Urban Transport and Environmental Improvement project.

"The degradation and desertification issues in China are closely related with the local economy development and land degradation situation," Xinxiao Yu, dean of School of Soil and Water Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, told Emerging China.

People combat land degradation and desertification problems generally by the methods of protecting the restored vegetation, implementing water project, as well as particular techniques, like the usage of chemical sand solidify reagent, according to Yu.

"The most important thing is that we should have different kinds of sand control methods based on the diversified local characters," Yu said.

For instance, Yulin county of Shaanxi province with rich groundwater resources, the technicians there had developed the lining membrane of rice cultivation technique to control the desertification and already made big success, Yu added.

Central and western regions have made big achievements on combating the land degradation and desertification over the past few years, Yu said.

"One of the reasons is the large rainfall as the natural factor, the other one is the effective and positive policies and projects," Yu said.

The government has already implemented some of the systematic projects focused on solving the desertification issues of China, including the Rising Green Great Wall project, Quitting Cultivation and Returning to Forest projects, Control Soil and Wind Erosion in the Source for Beijing and Tianjin project, as well as the project of Protecting Natural Forests.

"The sustainable policies for those drylands regions are also very critical to the future development," Yu added.

"The government put great emphasis on preventing the desertification problem, which bring up a bright prospect in this field," Bo Wu, an analyst of the Research Institute of Forestry at the Chinese Academy of Forestry, told Emerging China.