The Shapotou desert resort is the jewel in the tourism crown for Ningxia, China's poorest province. Lying on the edges of the Tengger desert, it is one of the most dramatic natural settings in all of China, situated at the convergence of the desert, the Yellow River and the "Fragrant Mountain" Range". Thousands of domestic tourists descend upon Shapotou each year to enjoy the natural scenery and partake in various activities on and around the 100-metre high dunes.

The Taklamakan desert is a place of such epic proportions and intimidating size that its name in the local Uygur language translates as 'You can go in, but you will never come out'. After the great Sahara desert of northern Africa, the Taklamakan is the second biggest moving –sands desert in the world. Lying hidden underneath the immense sea of sand of the Taklamakan, lies the Tarim Basin oilfield. Covering 560,000 square kilometers, it is China's fourth largest oilfield with a reserve of some 16 billion tonnes.

Sandwiched unforgivingly between the Tengger desert and the Badain Jaran desert, surface water has long since dried up in the dry and ravaged Minqin Oasis in Gansu Province. In the past two decades, the area has become a national symbol for China's fight against disappearing water as underground water levels have dropped by 15 meters over the past 50 years and approximately 50 percent of the area has turned into desert. Misuse of the remaining water is having worrying consequences for the region, threatening the survival of the people who call this land home.

Located in the heart of China's poorest province, Ningxia, the town is surrounded on all sides by arid and unproductive land, however for 200,000 'environmental refugees' this harsh place is now home.

The Inner Mongolian grasslands in northern China were once a place of traditional, nomadic life where groups of farmers were free to roam the vast expanses of grassland. This type of life rapidly disappeared in the 1980's when new regulations forced the settling of nomadic farmers into fixed, allocated farms. As farmers have been forced to graze their cattle on the same pieces of land, severe degradation of the grasslands has started to appear as overgrazing becomes a severe problem.

It is estimated that nearly 40 cities have been abandoned as a result of desertification in Northwest China in the past 2000 years. The old city of Yinpan, in China's western Xinjiang province, is one of those cities. Lying on the fringes of China's most formidable desert, the Taklamakan, its location is one of the harshest and most remote in all of China. Approximately 2000 years ago, the city of Yinpan was a successful, thriving and eclectic city, however the people's inability to adapt to disappearing water was one of the main reasons that led to the fall of this city.