When traveling in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China, you might sometimes see vast fields of white, even though the winter snow has not yet come. These fields are saline-alkaline lands, where crops and other plants are almost totally unable to grow. Xinjiang’s climate is arid and the annual rate of evaporation in the region can be more than 10 times the annual rainfall.
Evaporation draws water, which contains dissolved salts and other chemicals, from deeper in the soil to the soil surface and, without sufficient rainfall to wash these salts back down, the salinity and alkalinity of the soil’s surface layer continue to increase. Xinjiang has more saline-alkaline lands than any other provincial-level region in China, accounting for 36.8 percent of the nation’s total.
