On November 24, 2018, Bai Chunli, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who is visiting Uzbekistan, met with members of the China-Uzbekistan Amu River Basin Desertification Joint Investigation Team. After receiving the report from Gao Xin and Xu Wenqiang, associate professors of Xinjiang institute of ecology and geography of the Chinese academy of sciences, President Bai hoped that desertification team of Xinjiang institute of ecology and geography could contribute to the ecological governance of the Aral Sea in the future.

From November 15th to 26th, under the leadership of the team leader Bao Anming, a professor from Xinjiang institute of ecology and geography of the Chinese academy of sciences, the China-Uzbekistan Amu River Basin Desertification Joint Investigation Team, a 12-day comprehensive scientific study was conducted on the status of desertification in the Kyzylkum Desert, the Amu-Darya Delta and the Aral Sea.

The survey was the annual work of the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences "Pan-Third Pole Environmental Change and Green Silk Road Construction", Project 3, Environmental Issues and Disaster Risk Prevention and Control in Key Areas and Important Projects. Lei Jiaqiang, a researcher at the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, is the chief scientist of Project 3.

The survey route is into 300 km of the dry lake bottom of the Aral Sea. The investigation focused on the Aral Sea wind erosion, salinization damage, vegetation cover, land use/land cover change and Aral Sea dehydration process and the growth of lakeside vegetation in the past 40 years. A batch of first-hand materials were obtained about soil profile samples, vegetation samples, salt dust samples, etc. The ecological restoration experimental plots and observation fields of degraded soil in the shore of the Aral Sea were initially selected. It is planned to carry out a demonstration study on the ecological restoration of the typical saline-alkali lakeside in the Aral Sea in the spring of 2019.

And investigation team also held discussions with experts from the Institute of Botany of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences and the Nukuz Branch. Experts from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography introduced the experience of desertification control and saline land treatment in Xinjiang, Central Asia and Africa, and conducted in-depth exchanges with Uzbek experts on desertification issues and causes around the Amu Darya River and the Aral Sea.

Also participating in this comprehensive scientific investigation are Gao Xin, Wu Hao, Xu Wenqiang, Zhao Zhenyong, Wang Ping, associate professors of Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, and Uzbekistan Institute of Botany and Academy of Sciences Nukus Branch experts.