DESERTIFICATION CONTROL EXPERT CLAIMS TOP AWARD
Xu Xianying, a researcher on desertification, received the National Engineering Award, the nation’s highest honor in the field of engineering, on January 19.
Xu, 61, grew up in a village on the rim of a desert in Gansu Province. After college graduation, he chose fighting desertification as his lifelong career, working on taming sand for almost four decades.
Gansu in northwest China is one of the regions most severely affected by desertification. Xu has led his team to introduce sand-stabilizing vegetation and develop equipment and technologies such as machines for installing sand barriers. Xu headed the Gansu Desert Control Research Institute
