Qira

Passing through Qira County on our way, we were asked to stay by Wang Yijun, Director of the Office of the County Party Committee. He said he was an amateur archaeologist and an old acquaintance of Li Yuchun’s. In 1978 the two men had gone together to the desert in northern Qira County to survey a buried ancient city.

Tamarix forests not only effectively control local sand movement, wind erosion and disasters caused by wind-blown sand, but can also stop sand grains brought by the wind. For example, on the 3333.3 hectacres of planted Tamarix forest at the outer Qira Oasis with 60-70% coverage, the annual sand-blocking amount can reach 700,000 m³. When the wind passes through a Tamarix forest, besides blocking sand, the twigs and leaves of the trees also obstruct the passage of the dust in the air, improving the health situation of humans and livestock. For example, when the wind velocity is 15 m/s, the dust content at 2m height is 1/18 of the content measured at the same height in the outer oasis (observed at Qira County in 1987).