In ancient times the shifting sands of the Taklamakan, a desert in China’s north-western Xinjiang region, swallowed up entire cities. Today they still cause trouble. On the edges of the desert, sand ...

In Nature this week, researchers describe an initiative that is greening some of the world’s drylands — including deserts, shrublands and other water-scarce regions. The Great Green Wall of China, ...

Grand anti-desertification schemes often fail when trees die and funding dries up — yet one project has broken the mould. Lilin Zheng is a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Design, Shanghai ...

A new study warns that China’s decades-long Great Green Wall reforestation project has significantly reduced water resources across much of the country. Scientists found that increased vegetation has ...