mijobooks Chapter 7: Massive Construction, the Advance to the Desert Oasis City!
Chapter 7: Massive Construction, the Advance to the Desert Oasis City!
Yellow sand filled the sky, and the heat was scorching.
The edge of the Taklamakan Desert.
In the saline-alkali arid land.
Staff dispatched by the Oasis Municipal Government are digging ditches to divert water from the Tarim River into the desert.
At the same time, they introduced a "drip irrigation + fertigation" system to carry out precision irrigation technology and plant desert rice.
This technology, through timed and quantitative irrigation, can control the water consumption per acre of rice to 500 cubic meters, saving more than 50% of water compared to traditional paddy fields.
It is worth mentioning that.
Rice in desert regions can be harvested five times a year.
This does not mean planting five crops of rice on the same plot of land consecutively, but rather achieving "five batches of production per year" through greenhouse relay and short-cycle variety rotation.
Regarding rice varieties.
The Oasis City Government adopted the breeding of rice varieties with ultra-short growth periods.
The traditional rice growth cycle is generally 130 to 160 days.
The extra-early maturing varieties introduced to southern Xinjiang, such as "Xin Dao 10", can shorten the growth period to 90-100 days. With the help of measures such as germination and seedling raising, simultaneous transplanting, and nighttime supplemental lighting, the time from sowing to harvest of a single crop of rice can be reduced to less than 60 days.
In addition, they adopted a "one seedling, multiple uses" + "outdoor crop rotation" mechanism.
By continuously raising seedlings in greenhouses or seedling factories, germination and early growth are completed in advance before transplanting them into the field, achieving a relay model of "one crop growing in the field and another crop being raised in the greenhouse".
Regarding fertilizers.
During desert rice cultivation, salt removal projects are carried out simultaneously with irrigation, including underground drainage, surface ditches, and shallow tillage. This is combined with soil modification, biological agents, straw return to the field, biochar, and sandy soil mixing technology. More than 200 kg of biochar mixture is applied per acre, combined with microbial agents to gradually form an "active granular structure" in the sandy land, which is rich in organic matter.
In terms of yield per mu (unit of land area).
Five batches of desert rice have yielded an annual equivalent of 1 jin per mu.
What Oasis City needs to do right now is to plant 4000 million mu of rice in the saline-alkali, arid, and sandy land.
……
the other side.
Staff dispatched by the Oasis City Government drove agricultural machinery to level the tall sand dunes in steps, and then laid drip irrigation tape.
After the sand dunes were leveled, they were transformed into terraced fields.
Where the terraces are leveled, tamarisk seedlings and saxaul seedlings, as well as other species, are planted.
In sloping areas, first set up straw checkerboards, then plant the trees in the checkerboards.
This is a unique desertification control model – desert terraces.
The cost of transforming their massive sand dunes into terraced fields and leveling the land is only one-fifth of what it used to be.
At the same time, they used ditches to bring water from the Tarim River, used water pumps to pump the water to drip irrigation belts, and then transported it to the surrounding sandy land to complete the desert greening project.
……
the other side.
The desert highway, constructed by Xiaguo Construction Group Co., Ltd., is also under construction in full swing.
The highway starts in Oasis City and ends in Urumqi City.
The highway runs through the desert and has eight lanes in both directions.
Thousands of large bulldozers were seen shoveling yellow sand forward, advancing layer by layer, creating a breathtaking scene.
They adopted a "three-layer pushing method + belt conveyor" construction method, repeatedly pushing, shoveling, and transporting sand to send the pushed sand 500 meters away.
Xia Guo Construction Group Co., Ltd. has already designed a conveyor belt with one end located at the bottom of the sand dune and the other end extending to the filling section or spoil disposal site.
The bulldozer operator only needs to unload the sand from the bucket onto the conveyor belt to turn around and continue pushing sand.
To build a highway in the desert, you have to conquer the sand dunes.
The Taklamakan Desert has a hot and dry climate, making surface water extremely rare and precious.
But road construction is inseparable from water.
Faced with a waterless situation.
The engineers from Xiaguo Construction Group Co., Ltd. adopted the dry compaction method in the desert section, which is to directly compact the aeolian sand in the desert to form a sand base.
Then, a layer of geotextile is laid on the sand base, followed by Gobi material, gravel, etc.
At the same time, by using slopes twice as wide as those on ordinary roads, greater lateral pressure is applied to the roadbed, thus transforming loose sand into a solid roadbed.
Building a highway in the desert is an extremely difficult engineering project.
The first step is sand-based construction.
Large bulldozers formed the first echelon and were the first to enter the desert.
They advanced forward or to the side layer by layer, repeating this process until they reached the top surface of the designed roadbed.
The second step is the construction of the foundation.
After the sand base is formed, the highway has a relatively flat foundation.
Loading and unloading machines, along with graders and dump trucks, form the second tier.
They followed the first team, carrying out excavation and loading operations, spreading granular materials and compacting them, correcting continuous sand dune sections, and forming a flat and solid subbase.
The third step is the construction of the straw grid.
The most important aspect of desert highway construction is "sand stabilization".
Large transport vehicles were deployed to transport materials such as reeds, straw, and wheat straw to the construction section, where they were then carried to the construction site by hand.
Under the scorching sun, the builders used shovels to manually tamp the grass into the sand, forming squares one meter long and one meter wide.
This creates sand-stabilizing belts on both sides of the road, preventing the formation of shifting sands and avoiding the road being buried by wind and sand.
The fourth step is the construction of the base layer.
The road base layer is laid in sections of 7 to 10 kilometers, and the asphalt pavement is compacted and cured according to standards.
With this, the desert highway with a speed limit of 120 kilometers per hour was officially completed!
During the road construction process.
The seemingly calm and ubiquitous sand dunes in the desert are actually moving every moment.
A strong wind can completely bury the roadbed and road surface.
To the surprise of the construction workers.
During their construction, it was as if they had divine assistance.
All the dunes were calm and peaceful, without any sandstorms or extreme heat.
……
At the same time.
Residents from major cities across the country flocked to Oasis City, joining the ranks of urban construction workers.
Under the arrangement of the Oasis City Government, they were assigned to various teams to do what they could.
In an instant.
The Oasis City has an unprecedented abundance of human resources.
Everyone sprang into action, quickly getting busy and contributing their share.
Houses, main roads, cables, utility poles, fiber optic cables, solar streetlights, 4G base stations, water pipes, public toilets, gas stations, service areas, surveillance networks, desert toll stations, schools, hospitals, commercial areas, and more are all under construction at a rapid pace.
The entire Oasis City is thriving, with new changes almost every day.
Of course, building a desert oasis city is not something that can be done overnight.
Even with sufficient funds and manpower.
Building a city from scratch in the barren Taklamakan Desert would still take a long time.