20100322 Desert storm blankets most of North China(3)

clipped from www.chinadaily.com.cn "Arid and semiarid areas can only support one or two people per square kilometer. In China, population density in these areas is over 10 people per square kilometer," Jiang Gaoming, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' institute of botany, wrote in an article for China Dialogue, an online environmental magazine, in 2007. The residents once were nomads "but now they have settled, increasing the pressure on the environment and inevitably damaging it". Efforts to increase green space, as well as the public's awareness of the issue of desertification, are also being increasingly challenged by drastic changes in the climate. improvements in traditional farming methods could also help reduce the likelihood of sandstorms. About 70 percent of dust and sandstorms originate from rural fields, he said, noting that as a result of poor vegetation cover, dry topsoil could easily be picked up, blown away and carried by strong winds.