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CNPC's Tarim Desert highway shelterbelt project was named an official National Environmentally-Friendly Project at the Second National Environmentally-friendly Project Awards Assembly and the Thirteenth Green China Forum held recently in Beijing's Great Hall of People. This is the only project in petroleum and petrochemical industries that wins this top prize. The National Environmentally-Friendly Project designation was established in August 2005, and is the top award in construction programs' environmental protection in China. Altogether 94 projects are nominated from 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, and ten of them are finally confirmed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. Since 1989, CNPC has found a number of oil and gas fields in the Tarim Basin. In 1995, Tarim Desert Highway was completed and put in use. The highway had been constructed with a mechanical sand-defense system which helped protect the safe and smooth traffic in early period. However, as time went by, the mechanical system became obsolete. To radically treat the sand problem and improve ecological environment along the highway, in 2003, we started the cooperation with Chinese Academy of Science to carry out the Shelter-forest Project for Tarim Desert Highway. We conducted pilot test and successfully found a way to watering suitable plants by high salinity groundwater in the desert. In-situ water collection, disperse water supply and drop irrigation via pipeline was adopted throughout the highway, and a number of major technical problems in planting and growing trees had been solved. With these efforts, the survival rate of plants exceeded 80% in the extremely rigorous climate. By 2006, a 436km-long and 72-78m-wide green corridor, covering a total area of 3,128 hectares, was present in the desert, which is the longest of its kind in the world and will protect the highway from sand for a good while. |
