Cyanobacteria are now being used in China to shore up the verges of roads and railways in northern China as well as the margins of oases and farmland. A team plans to seed 133 square kilometer of desert over the next 5 years. The bacteria creates 0.5 to 1.0 centimeter thick biocrust over the desert which helps topsoil to reform and prevents top soil erosion. In its next step, China plans to have 200k square km of desertified land, or 50% of the country’s desert area that can be reversed, harnessed by 2020 and improve living standards for people living in the desert

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