Dusty weather affected north China on March 1, according to a report on sandstorm monitoring and assessment by the State Forestry Administration (SFA). The dust hit Beijing, Tianjin, Shanxi, Hebei and Shandong, with Beijing and Tianjin the least affected. This is the first time Beijing has been hit by dusty weather this year.

To control the sandstorms and dusty weather, the Chinese Government has concentrated on tree planting and ecological projects in recent years. China's desertification acreage shrank 37,900 square km from 2000 to 2004, said a senior official with the SFA.

Zhu Lieke, Vice Administrator of the SFA, said about 20 percent of the desertification areas had improved. China had an acreage of 2.6 million square km of land hit by desertification with 400 million people affected, said Liu Tuo, head of the Desertification Prevention and Treatment Department under the SFA.

According to Zhu, nearly 320,000 square km of land is exposed to high risks of erosion. He said the government had made great efforts to convert the deserts into forest land and pastures and to fund other projects to restore healthy forest ecosystems.

The country's deserts are shrinking by 7,585 square km annually due to the efforts of local governments, compared with an annual expansion of 10,400 square km at the end of the last century, according to official statistics.

The project of creating shelter forests in the north, northwest and northeast China, started in 1978 and will last till 2050, involving 551 counties in 13 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities with a planned forestation area of 35.08 million hectares, said the SFA in a report on January 21.

According to the report, in the past 30 years, an aggregate of 23.74 million hectares of forest areas have been conserved. In the area covered by the project, the forest coverage rate has risen to 10.51 percent from a figure of 5.05 percent in 1977 and at the same time, 40 percent of the sandy soil and 40 percent of the areas with water loss and soil erosion in the loess plateau were recovered. Besides, planting trees also brings economic benefits to farmers. For example, in the area covered by the project, the output of fresh and dried fruit amounts to 20 million tons every year, one fifth of the country's total. Farmers earn 30 billion yuan ($4.23 billion) through cultivation of fruit trees.

In 2000, the Chinese Government launched a sandstorm source control project, involving 75 counties and districts in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia. According to the SFA report, the total planned area stands at 20.57 million hectares. By 2006, 6.12 million hectares had been completed. Grazing activities are prohibited in 5.68 million hectares of pasture and 101,200 people have been moved from the area due to ecological reasons. In the project area, the vegetation coverage rate increased 10-20.4 percent on average from 2001 to 2005, and the volume of dust has been reduced by 15.8 percent.

Plains cover 40 percent of the country's total area and contain the major grain production areas. However, there are few forests on the plains. In 1988, China started a landscape engineering project on the plains, developing forest belts that cross farmland and planting trees beside houses, villages, roads and water areas. According to the SFA report, between 1988 and 2007, an aggregate of 7.1 million hectares of forest were developed in the flat country and the forest coverage rate was raised to 15.8 percent from 7.3 percent in 1987. Owing to the 3.77 million hectares of newly planted forest belts, 33.56 million hectares of farmland have been protected.

Estimates show that forest belts crossing farmland can slow the low-level wind speed by 30-40 percent, raise the relative humidity by 5-15 percent and increase the soil water content by 10-20 percent, therefore effectively improving growth conditions and increasing yield.

For the latest effort, the country will invest 1.57 billion yuan ($221.13 million) over the next decade to protect and improve the ecological environment of the valley of Qinghaihu Lake, the country's largest inland saltwater lake.

According to plans approved by the National Development and Reform Commission on December 29, 2007, the 10-year (1988-2007) project aims to conserve wetlands, restore grasslands, control rats and pests, prevent desertification, plant more trees, resettle residents, offer safe drinking water to rural people and renovate riverways with 29,661 square km of land being covered by the plan.