Drowning desert: how Xinjiang’s infrastructure could fail under record rain

Rare but intense rainfall in China’s biggest desert that triggered flooding – and damage – across parts of Xinjiang has underscored the growing risks posed by extreme weather in the country’s arid northwest.According to China-weather-network" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="151784" data-entity-type="organization">China Weather Network, the public information platform of the China-meteorological-administration" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="129901" data-entity-type="organization">China Meteorological Administration (CMA), two major flood events have occurred along the margins of the Taklamakan Desert, a once-arid region, this month.While warmer, wetter conditions in recent decades made agriculture possible in previously inhospitable areas, bolstering food security, extreme and more frequent rainfall could exact a toll on the region’s fragile ecology and infrastructure, experts said.