Funded by the project of key scientific and technological infrastructure construction of field stations network of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the auto-simulating and monitoring system of water balance in desert regions in the northern China-lysimeter group, based on 36 large weighting lysimeters, were building in Shapotou Desert Research and Experiment Station. The paper introduced the scientific target, construction idea and contents, and anticipated research direction based on the lysimeter group. The lysimeter group is composed of the large weighting lysimeters, various types of probes, the moving greenhouse and precipitation simulators, has characterized by integration and uniqueness. The platform can(1) automatically simulate and control precipitation intensity and ground water table, and quantify plant water sources;(2) automatically monitor evapotranspiration, plant transpiration, soil water leakage, and moistures, temperatures and conductivities in soil profile as well;and(3) periodically be investigated plant growth and collected soil solution. The establishment of platform will uplift our research capabilities of multi-scale knowledges on ecological and hydrological processes in desert regions of the northern China, and the mechanisms of ecohydrology and environmental stress physiological ecology. It will answer the key scientific issues in the prevention and control of desertification in China, such as soil water carrying capacity of vegetation and ecohydrological threshold of the stability of sand-binding revegetation in different climatic desert zones. The advances of eco-hydrological research in the Shapotou statotion was also introduced.

Qilian Mountain is an important ecological security barrier in western China. It is one of the key ecological functional areas of the country, which ecological protection and management has always been the focus of national, local government and local residents. At present, there are many problems in the ecological protection work in Qilian Mountains, which include the lack and mastery of basic status quo data, the contradiction between regional economic development and ecological environment protection, ecological environment comprehensive monitoring system is not complete, and lack of innovative ecological compensation mechanism to promote relevant measures. Based on the comprehensive ecological problems existing in the Qilian Mountains, Proposed how to langding the ecological protection red line in Qilian Mountains and strictly enforce it. These suggestions mainly include speeding up the Qilian Mountains comprehensive scientific investigation, improve and implement ecological compensation mechanism, explore a positive list-oriented coordinated development model, promote the coordination of ecological security and sustainable social development,the further implementation of major supporting policies, and improve the support system and so on.

Based on the wind data collected from automatic meteorological stations of Chaka, Gonghe and Guinan in the Gonghe Basin, this paper analyzed the variation characteristics of wind speed, wind direction and sand drift potential. Combining with high resolution images of Google Earth, the relationship between wind regime and aeolian geomorphology is discussed. The results are as follows:(1) The annual mean wind speed ranges in 1.6-2.7 m·s^-1 in the Gonghe Basin. The frequency of threshold wind in northwest region, middle region and southeast region were 7.7%, 3.5% and 0.9%, respectively. The threshold wind mainly occurs in the winter and spring. Its direction is mainly WNW and W. (2) The wind energy is low. The sand activity weakens from northwest to southeast in the Gonghe Basin. The wind direction variability ranges in 0.7-0.96, and wind regime is narrow unimodal or wide unimodal. The wind direction variability belongs to high ratio in northwest region and middle region, but in southeast region, it belongs to intermediate. RDP is almost the same, and its value ranges in 281°-287.1°. (3)Dune field patterns conclude barchans dunes, reticulate dunes, compound dunes chain, mega dunes, longitudinal dunes and parabolic dunes etc. That fits well with wind regime in the Gonghe Basin.

Sand industry is an inevitable choice for the development of western, construction of ecological civilization and alleviation of poverty. This study based on the understanding of connotation of sand industry, firstly analyzing the potential of the spatial, resource, scientific and technological for the development of sand industry in western China. Then, the relationship between the development of sand industry and the construction of ecological civilization and the alleviation of poverty in the new period was discussed through a case. Finally, the main problems and policy suggestions in the development of sand industry in western China were pointed out.

By analyzing the meteorological and hydrological data, high-resolution remote-sensing images, and field survey, we discussed the regional aeolian-fluvial interaction characteristics and its effect on parabolic dunes in the southern fringe of Hobq Desert, China. The results showed that from 1971 to 2014, the interaction between fluvial and aeolian processes in the study area gradually changed from "aeolian-fluvial balance" to "fully fluvial dominant". There were many floods occurred in the Baerdong River with high sediment transport during this period, which resulted in re-channelization. The river encroached into and cut the riverine transverse dune fields on the western bank. Consequently, several residual dunes remained on the east bank and became incipient sand source of parabolic dunes. The sediment accumulated on the riverbed provided external sand source for riverine parabolic dunes on the eastern bank through gullies under northwest wind erosion. Because of continuous dropping of resultant drift potential in the study area from 1970 to 2014, the sand sediment accumulated in the riverbed decreased gradually. In the stage of "fully fluvial dominant", the transportation of sand sediment in the riverbed by floods and the erosion of riverside terrace slope by rainfall may have enhanced "capture" effect on the west bank dunes. And then floods gradually blocked the supply of external sand source. The limited sand source is the basic condition for the development of barchans. With the weakening of aeolian erosion and the increasing of precipitation in the study area, the barchans gradually transformed into parabolic dunes under the "horn-anchoring" mechanism by vegetation. Parabolic dunes in the study area are the result of specific local factors which are the product of the local climatic regime. Therefore, The aeolian-fluvial interaction characteristics has a great influence on the formation and development of parabolic dunes next to the Baerdong River, which is an important factor to study the formation and evolution of sandy landforms and rivers.

The upper reaches of the Heihe river basin is the vital ecological function region of water conservation, which is of great significance to maintain the ecological balance of the whole basin.A water yield model based on InVEST was employed to estimates water conservation in the upper reaches of Heihe River basin. this paper analyzes the spatial and temporal characteristics of water conservation and the correlation between water conservation and climate factors.The main conclusions are as follows:(1) The area of grass, scrub and woodland increased by 1 665 km², 381.75 km²and 162.75 km², respectively in the upper reaches of Heihe river basin from 2001 to 2015. By contrast, deserts and farmland were reduced by 2 165.25 km² and 20.5 km², respectively; The year mean value of water conservation was 228.64 mm and the spatial distribution of water conservation was high southeast, low northwest in the upper reaches of the Heihe River basin in 2001-2015. The higher value area is located in the Qilian Mountains area, northern Sunan Yugur Autonomous County banded high value area upstream water conservation, in 2008 and later, water conservation is lower than the basic anomaly. Overall, water conservation showed a decreasing trend at the annual rate of 7.60 mm; In the past 15 years,the variation of potential evapotranspiration and precipitation has been the main climatic factor affecting the change of water conservation in the study area. The potential evapotranspiration and precipitation showed a trend of increase and decrease respectively in the upper reaches of Heihe River basin. The rates were 1.45 mm·a^-1 and -0.67 mm·a^-1 respectively.The water conservation was negatively correlated with potential evapotranspiration and precipitation is positively correlated.Precipitation mainly affects the Middle East, north of Qilian Mountains alpine region while potential evapotranspiration mainly restricts the water resources in the northwest.

There are many methods for determining particle-size distribution of soil sample. As the principle of each method is different, the results are not the same. In order to measure the particle size precisely, it is very important to reveal the reasons for the different results obtained by different methods, to select proper methods, and to establish the conversion relationship. In this study, we used five methods to measure particle-size distribution of five soil samples. The results showed that the average particle size measured by Sieve-pipette method (SPM) is the smallest among all the methods, with the largest portion of fine particles; while the average particle size measured by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) is the biggest, with the largest portion of coarse particles. Except the soil sample with high CaCO₃ content, the particle size distributions of all other four samples are very similar when measured using different methods. The conversion relationship could be established between SPM and LD, while the conversion relationship could be established between S-LD1 and SEM only for sand and silt fractions. Generally speaking, the results measured by S-LD1 are the most reliable in study of wind erosion. The results measured by SEM are suitable for samples with narrow particle size distributions, and the results measured by laser diffraction method (LD) are reliable for soils with lesssoil aggregate.

Dune geomorphology is one of important issues in aeolian geomorphology. Reversing dune has two leeward slopes, and forms under two reversed wind directions. There are transverse dunes formed under primary wind direction, and the dune crest moves to primary wind direction under reversed wind direction. The reversing dunes can form under anywhere there are reversed wind directions. In this paper, the developing reversing dune on a flatted shifting surface in the southeast Tengger Desert were selected to study the dune geomorphology development processes. The windward slope and leeward slope were measured in the field conditions. The result indicated that the reversing dune development can divided into three stages:transverse dune, transition and reversing dunes. During the different development stages, the windward slope and leeward slope obviously changed.

With the daily precipitation data of Tazhong Station in the hinterland of Taklimakan Desert from 1997 to 2017, the daily variation of precipitation and extremely strong precipitation were analyzed. The results showed that with increasing trend of annual precipitation, the rainy day number was reducing. Especially both the days and volumes of big rainy had obviously increased. The evolvement of rain had enhanced. The rainy days more happened in June, the strongest hourly rain was 8.4 mm which accrued at the end of spring on May 14th. The diurnal variation of precipitation presented many peaks and troughs. The maximum precipitation appeared near midnight at 23:00 (Beijing Time). The maximum precipitation frequency occurred at 06:00 (Beijing Time). The precipitation intensity and frequency played different parts in rain. From afternoon to eve it presented strong precipitation intensity with low precipitation frequency. However, from midnight to day it presented weak precipitation intensity with high precipitation frequency. Short-duration precipitation within 1-3 hours were dominated events in the hinterland of Taklimakan Desert and the contribution rate of short-duration precipitation events within 1-3 hours to total precipitation were up to 61.76%.The threshold of the 99th percentile for daily rainfall and hourly rainfall were 15.3 mm·d^-1 and 6.0 mm·h^-1, respectively. Actually, contribution rate of extreme strong rainfall higher more than the threshold of the 90th percentile was close to half of total precipitation. The extreme strong rainfall events occurred mainly under the 500 hPa circulation background of the south branch through, trough-line and thin cyclonic wind fields which lied at the south of 40°N in the Southern Xinjiang Basin. And the humidity was close or excess to 10 g·kg^-1 at 850 hPa in the Minfeng which was at the southwest of Taklimakan Desert. The continuous character of precipitation was worse, and there were more short term precipitation at mesoscale and micro scale in local.