URUMQI, March 22 (Xinhua) -- China has directed 1.78 billion cubic meters of water from the Tarim River to irrigate vegetation on its middle and lower reaches last year, an effort to restore the "green barrier" in southern Xinjiang.

　　The Tarim River, China's longest inland river, runs 1,321 km along the rim of the barren Tarim Basin of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

　　Omerjan Ubul, deputy director of the management bureau of the Tarim River basin, said the ecology of the river basin is fragile, and the lower reaches have been suffering from drought since the 1970s.

　　In 2001, the State Council approved a Tarim River treatment program. A set of measures were adopted such as water saving, returning farmland to grassland, dry riverway treatment and dam building.

　　During the past three years, the average annual water consumption of the river was 15.27 billion cubic meters, 4.21 billion cubic meters lower than that of 2000, Omerjan Ubul said.

　　A portion of the water saved was used to recharge groundwater and another portion was used to irrigate plants on the river banks, said Ma Ming, an official in charge of water resource management of the bureau.

　　Xinjiang has infused 7.7 billion cubic meters of water to the dry trunk stream of lower reaches of the Tarim River in 19 rounds of water diversion since 2000.

　　Statistics show a total of 2,285 square km of vegetation on the lower reaches of the river has been restored or improved thanks to the irrigation project. The area of sand was reduced by 854 square km.

　　A green area, covering 4,240 square km on the lower reaches of the river, is a "green barrier" which prevents the closing of the Taklimakan Desert and the Kuruktag Desert, said Omerjan Ubul.

　　If the two deserts closed, the sand would extend toward the nearby provinces under the influence of the northwest wind, he said.