Kumtag Desert

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Kumtag Desert (Sand Mountain Desert) is an arid landform in northern China, which has been proclaimed as a national park in the year 2002. The Kumtag Desert is expanding and threatening to engulf previously productive lands with its arid wasteland character.^[1] Several years prior the estimated size of the desert was 2500 square kilometres, but with recent expansion, the Kumtag Desert is already considerably larger as of 2008.

[edit] Ongoing desertification

The Kumtag Desert is continuing a process of expansion that is the result of centuries of overgrazing of this region that is beyond its carrying capacity. According to the AFP news report of November, 2007: "Towering sand dunes [of the Kumtag Desert] loom over the ancient Chinese city of Dunhuang".^[1] According to Hogan: "Rapid expansion of the Kumtag Desert and other dunes formations threaten to engulf Yungang and other archaeological sites"; moreover, the desertification adjacent to the Kumtag Desert is part of a larger problem in northern China where the present rate of desertification in this single region of China (e.g. Northern China) now exceeds 1000 square miles per annum.^[2] To mitigate the desertification, the town of Dunhuang has placed severe limitations on immigration, and has also placed restrictions on new water well development or new farm additions.^[1]