Dust Source of Sandstorm in the Tarim Basin, Northwest China

Dust supply is important to sandstorm occurrence as well as wind regime. Dust supply is closely related to groundsurface conditions showed by these index soil physical composition, soil moisture, vegetation cover, human activities. The physical conditions of groundsurface in the Tarim basin is distributed in a ringlike pattern. From edge to hinterland, there are various landscapes in turn as follow: mountains, piedmont pluvial and alluvial fans and plains and shifting desert. At the same time, in this turn, different types of soil has been developed there: brown desert soil, ancient oasis cultivated soil (anthropogenic-alluvial soil), swamp soil, desert forest meadow soil, paddy soil, saline soil, takyr soil, shifting sandy soil, and so on. Through comprehensive analysis, some conclusions were drew as the follow: (1)shifting deserts are the major dust source of sandstorm occurred in the hinterland and the south fringe of the Taklimakan Desert; (2)cultivated soils are another dust source of sandstorm occurred in oasis areas disturbed by high-intensity human activities; (3) gobi deserts in upper of piedmont pluvial and alluvial fans and desert forest areas on alluvial plains are the potential dust sources with high dust-emitting ability that can be activiated by human activities.