Some Strategic Countermeasures for the Sustainable Development of Water Resources in Northwest China

摘要

The northwestern region of China is a vast territory endowed with rich resources and populated by many ethnic groups. This is a region of strategic importance to China so far as economic development, social stability and national defense are concerned and is also . an extremely important ecological buffer zone of China because of its special physiographical conditions. The high mountains and the deserts are connected by large, medium or small rivers, which are mainly fed by rainfall, glaciers, and snowmelt water from the mountains. These rivers flow through the alluvial plains at the foothills of mountain slopes and terminate at the lakes and wetlands in the deserts or disappear in the deserts. The landscapes formed in the main areas of the basins are in the order of water resources conditions: artificial oases, natural oases, barren land, and deserts.