The Tarim River on the North-Eastern boarder of the Taklamakan desert in Xinjiang /NW China is about 1320 km long and thus one of the longest continental inland waterways worldwide. In an undisturbed state,it is accompanied on both sides by natural floodplain vegetation mainly built up by desert poplar forests with Populus euphratica.Additionally,reed stands (with Phragmites communis) and salt cedar shrubs (with Tamarix spec.) are common features of the vegetation.The rising water consumption in the upper and middle reaches and,in the past decades,massive hydro-technical interventions during the development of uncultivated land use (cotton growing),led to the widespread destruction of the natural ecosystems,particularly in the lower reaches of the river where on 320 km the riparian forests are either highly degraded or dead,causing land desertification and net out-migration,the traditional Settlements have to be abandoned.In order to avoid the further expansion of the desert,it is absolutely essential to preserve the floodplain forests and to revitalize the variously degraded Populus euphratica stands.