Lawmakers from northwest China's Gansu Province have vowed to better protect a county with a population of some 300,000 from sprawling deserts at the request of Premier Wen Jiabao.

"We must never allow Minqin county to repeat the tragedy of Lop Nur," Premier Wen told deputies to the National People's Congress from Gansu Province during a group discussion.

Lop Nur used to be a lake of about 10,000 sq km in the Tarim Basin of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Its water area had kept shrinking since the early 1900s before the entire lake dried up and turned desertified in 1972.

Hemmed in on three sides by two deserts, Minqin county in Wuwei city is increasingly menaced as the deserts have been sprawling at more than 20 meters a year, and 94.5 percent of its land is suffering from desertification, said Lu Hao, a NPC deputy and governor of the northwestern province.

The oasis sandwiched between Badain Jaran desert and Tengger desert has an average of 139 windy days a year. "The villagers often wake up in the morning to find the walls encircling their courtyards tumbled," said Lu.

Shrinking water resources plus arid climate has turned the county into one of the driest and sandiest regions in China, and a major source of sandstorms that sweep across north China in the windy season, he said.

"Minqin county is on the verge of deteriorating into another Lop Nur unless prompt measures are taken to increase its water supply," said Chen Dexing, an official with the county government.

The county has no surface water except the Shiyanghe River that flows in from its south. But water conservation projects on the upper reaches of the river have reduced water flow into Minqin county from 542 million cubic meters in the 1950s to 80 million cubic meters today, said Chen.

"In fact, merely less than seven percent of the total runoff of the river valley into Minqin county, as against 30 percent about half a century ago," he added.

According to Chen, inadequate water supply is affecting at least 148,000 locals and 180,000 head of cattle in Minqin county. "Many locals have to travel more than 10 km to carry drinking water, and peasant farmers have to dig at least 300 meters deep for irrigation water, or to abandon their cropland," said Chen.

The county had planted more than 90,000 hectares of forests and 48,000 hectares of grass by the end of 2004, he said, but added that these are far from enough to protect the county from encroaching deserts.

"The provincial government is ready to invest in water conservation projects on Shiyanghe River to divert more water to Minqin county," said Governor Lu Hao, adding the efforts from Minqin county alone are not enough to combat the deteriorating environment.

In the long-term, he said he hopes China's south-to-north water diversion program will help tackle the water crisis.

It's also the objective of the Chinese government to ensure that "people have clean water, fresh air and a better environment", as Premier Wen Jiabao has pledged in his work report to the legislature session that the government will "make still greater efforts to bring sources of sandstorms under control".

(Xinhua News Agency March 9, 2005)