Sand Control Research Station

Sand Control Research Station

Sand Control Research Station

The Cele County Sand Control Research Station of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is the third stop in the Cele Humanistic Ecological Tourism Park. Established in 1983, the station was relocated to the edge of the desert in 1993, included in the national desertification monitoring network of the State Forestry Administration in 2001, and incorporated into the Chinese Ecosystem Research Network in 2003, and in 2005 became a field research station officially named the Cele County Desert Grassland Ecosystem National Field Research Station of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Located on the southern edge of the world-famous shifting desert — the Taklamakan Desert and at the northern foot of the Kunlun Mountains, Cele County has historically been forced to relocate three times due to sandstorm invasions. In 1983, when raging sandstorms once again approached within 1.5 kilometers of the county town and the people of Cele had nowhere left to retreat, they launched a “last stand battle.” The Cele National Field Research Station of the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, established in 1983, took on the mission under these critical circumstances and bore the heavy responsibility of this last stand battle.