Located at the heart of the Taklimakan desert, Qiemo County has a desert area of 53,800 square kilometers, 38.4 percent of its total land area. In 1998, the county launched a sandstorm control project, with local farmers starting to plant trees. In the past 20 years, they've planted sandstorm barriers on the edges of the desert – 23 kilometers in length – and added a total of 7,666.7 hectares of forests. Each of the Qiemo Desertification Control Stations is in charge of 66.7 hectares of forests, and every 0.067 hectare of forests has a nearly 300-meter long drip tube, which means that each member has to take care of a 300,000-meter long drip tube.