The Shelter-forest project of the Tarim Desert highway was approved and carried out in 2003 on the base of research results of the natural conditions and sites situations along the Tarim Desert highway and the experimental research results of the shelter-forest construction in the center of the Taklimkan Desert. In the project

the key problems are to select plant specie and determine the structures of the forest belts and the irrigation mode and quota according to the differences of the site conditions. The project

starting from Xiaotang and reaching the National Highway 315

through the Taklimakan Desert from north to south

has an area of forest belt of 3 128 hm2 with 436 km long and 72-78 m wide. In the project

about 20 million shrubs of Calligonum

Tamarix

Haloxylon and arbors of E .angustifolis L. and P.euphratica Oliv . have been planted and local groundwater with high salinity at 3-15 g/L was utilized to irrigate forest. The plant species in the shelter-forest were mixed among rows with spacing in the rows about 1m×2m or 1m×1m. The shelter-forest consists of sand-blocking forest belts and sand-stabilizing forest belts. Meanwhile

the drip irrigating system has been set up

including 114 water supply wells

114 sets of generator

water pump and water supply header

959.2 km main water supply pipe

1 018 km branch pipe

19184 km capillary pipe and so on. Preliminary observations indicate that the shelter-forest project of the Tarim Desert highway had significant effects in sand protection and environment improvement

groundwater intake for shelter-forest irrigation didn't result in negative influence on groundwater environment along the Tarim Desert highway.