The Economist has paywalled writeup https://www.economist.com/china/2024/12/05/will-chinas-green... that is a bit skeptical of the project's impact (unlinked claims at least half due to increased rain, not human efforts) and sustainability (also unlinked, but I'd guess correct, it seems somewhat similar projects such as the great plains shelterbelt in the US decline unless maintained).
Surely there must be an afforestation/macro ecological engineering geek out there who has blogged on this in depth, would love to read it!
Vegetation-type is determined by temperature and precipitation. You can't un-desertify a true desert unless you irrigate. Most of these projects that "succeed" - miraculously correlate with good rainfall experience.
Most of the Sahel revegetated all by itself, when the decadal drought ended in the 90's.
Re-vegetation projects can help put vegetation back when it's been removed by shitty management practises like severe over-grazing.
It can also help speed revegetation if there are no nearby seed sources and dispersion speeds for those species are low. But dry-adapted vegetation seeds can usually persist for very long periods of time waiting for water.
One of the reasons for the interestingness of speculative proposals like Qattara, seawater-for-Salton, and it turns out an even more ambitious project to pump seawater from the Bohai Sea to Xinjiang.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(China) cites https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-completes-3-000-km-11254926... which is one of many press articles that only cites (but does not link) state media.
The Economist has paywalled writeup https://www.economist.com/china/2024/12/05/will-chinas-green... that is a bit skeptical of the project's impact (unlinked claims at least half due to increased rain, not human efforts) and sustainability (also unlinked, but I'd guess correct, it seems somewhat similar projects such as the great plains shelterbelt in the US decline unless maintained).
Surely there must be an afforestation/macro ecological engineering geek out there who has blogged on this in depth, would love to read it!