In view of the fact that the desertification of Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia and other places in China has been difficult to control, the country has to invest a lot of manpower and material resources to control the desertification every year. Greatly improve the ecological environment of Northwest China.

Moreover, the 14th Five-Year Plan once again mentioned the entry of Tibetan water into Xinjiang. This idea will most likely become a reality in the future when the country is strong. What is even more exciting is that on the route of diverting water into Xinjiang, it is bound to pass through Lop Nur , which has never been seen before. The beautiful Lop Nur will be expected to appear in the world again.

As for why the diversion of water into Xinjiang can bring Lop Nur back to life, it has to start with how Lop Nur disappeared .

How did Lop Nur disappear?

Lop Nur, the Mongolian transliteration name, means a lake with many waters. It is located at the easternmost end of the Tarim Basin in southeastern Xinjiang and belongs to the lowest end of the Tarim Basin. The overall average altitude of the Tarim Basin is between 800-1300 meters, while the altitude of Lop Nur is only It is 780 meters long. From the topographical point of view, the Tarim River, Kongque River, Cheerchen River and Shule River , which are formed by the confluence of Tianshan Mountain, Pamir Plateau, Kunlun Mountain and Qilian Mountains around the Tarim Basin, all gather here. This is the main reason why Lop Nur was once the second largest inland lake in China.

In the 1970s, as scientists investigated the shoreline of Lop Nur and combined with ancient records, the largest area of ​​Lop Nur reached 5,350 square kilometers . Three hundred miles in length."

Friends who are familiar with Loulan must know that the demise of Loulan is inseparable from the water source. Loulan, which was once prosperous for a while, was diverted from the Zhubin River in the middle reaches of the Tarim River after the Eastern Han Dynasty , resulting in a substantial reduction in the amount of water flowing into Lop Nur. Loulan, who had been worried, had to rely on soldiers from many surrounding countries to cut the flow of water to Binhe around the clock to forcibly divert water to Loulan, and dredging the middle reaches of the Tarim River did not bring Loulan back to life. After all, Loulan civilization is due to lack of water. And fell.

If there is not enough water, Lop Nur will gradually dry up, but the geographical location and altitude of Lop Nur determine that as long as there is water injection, it can still be revived. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Lop Nur became a small lake with eight or ninety miles from east to west and one or two miles from north to south. In 1921, the Tarim River was diverted to the east, and Lop Nur replenished enough water sources. By 1950, the area of ​​the Lop Nur lake reached 2000 square kilometers.

However, the good times did not last long. With the founding of New China, the wave of western development came to the Tarim River Basin. A large number of rivers were reclaimed and reservoirs were built. In addition, the population on both sides of the Tarim River surged, and the increasing water demand finally reached the Tarim River. A 320-kilometer dry river appeared in the lower reaches of the Tarim River , and Lop Nur suffered a fatal blow. With the rapid decline of the area of ​​Lop Nur, the ecological environment in the lower reaches of the Tarim River underwent great changes. Soil is replaced by gravel.

The last Lop Nur lake was covered by wind and sand, and this is the current "sea of ​​death". Lop Nur in the wind and sand has been waiting for the water to come again, but there is little hope of relying on the Tarim River.

Huge amount of water storage into Xinjiang

The entry of Tibetan water into Xinjiang actually refers to the water transfer plan in western China, that is, the Hongqi River Project. This project will bypass the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and inject into China In the middle reaches of the Hongqi River in the northwest, this plan relies on the high and low artesian terrain to realize independent water transfer. It can inject up to 60 billion cubic meters of water into Northwest China every year, with a total investment of 4 trillion yuan , and it flows through Lop Nur. At that time, Lop Nur is bound to recover.

The advantages of the Hongqi River Project are self-evident. The main reason for the slow development of Northwest China is also related to water shortage. In addition to benefiting the Xinjiang region, the Hongqi River Project also benefits Gansu, Shaanxi, and western Inner Mongolia. The role of land promotion, a Hongqi River project, affects one-sixth of China's land area , which is why such a huge investment project is always mentioned.

However, the Hongqi River project has been constantly questioned since it was proposed . In 2015, the Ministry of Water Resources once specifically refuted the rumors about the launch of the Tibetan water project into Xinjiang, saying that it has never made any specific planning. The real Hongqi River water transfer research group was officially launched in 2016. It was established to solve various problems of the entire water transfer route, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs quickly denied this. The reason is that the water transfer of the Hongqi River project involves the interests of neighboring countries, although for China, these flow out to the southeast. The water utilization rate of China is very low, but it still has a great impact on India and other countries, and is not conducive to the spirit of a community with a shared future for mankind advocated by China .

In addition to the external environmental impact, on the entire 6,188-kilometer water diversion route planned, due to the influence of a large number of rivers and mountains, a large number of tunnels must be built, a total of 136 tunnels need to be built, and the total length of the tunnels reaches The length of one of the longest tunnels reached 55 kilometers , and it is located on the edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau with frequent geological activities. How to ensure the integrity of the tunnel during the earthquake and the infiltration of the river bed is still a huge problem.

There is also the most realistic point, where does the 4 trillion project funding come from? China is still mainly investing in construction at this stage. In 2020, China's fiscal revenue will be about 18 trillion, but the corresponding fiscal expenditure will reach 24.7 trillion. The massive Three Gorges Project, with an investment scale of about 207.8 billion yuan, is less than 5% of the Hongqi River project budget. It can be said that even if a solution to the geological problem is found, it will take a long time for China to accumulate funds to achieve it.