Inventor battles to hold back desert sands

"No one seemed to understand," he said. "So eventually I stopped talking about it."

After years of observation and research, Lou found that while water flows downward, dunes move upward.

"If a 50-centimeter-high barrier is placed along the top of a dune ridge, sand will stack up like a small hill, and the dune will stop moving forward," Lou said.

In his bid to design a barrier that would not be destroyed by violent sandstorms, Lou read many books, but he could not find any methods to achieve his goal.

"The structures of the barriers in the books were like high curtains, fixed vertically in the desert, which would be destroyed easily by the fierce winds and pressure of the accumulating sand," he said. "So I began to do my own experiments and designs."

In August 2008, Lou's first paper on desertification control was published in the official magazine of the first sand industry summit in China.

"It was a milestone that encouraged me to continue my work."

To prove his theory, in 2010, he ordered 100 kilograms of sand from a desert in Inner Mongolia and experimented with his design at home with the help of a giant wind blower. Three years later, he had come up with the reticular barrier, which has proved both functional and economical.

The major cost is the mesh, which is custom made in a factory in Lou's hometown and costs about 4 yuan (60 cents) a meter.

Lou said he does not know how much he has spent on his numerous visits to the desert and experiments. But over the decade, he has spent all of his monthly income of about 6,500 yuan－1,500 yuan of which is a pension and the rest his salary as an adviser to a local company in his hometown. When he runs out of money, he asks his son, who runs a gardening business, or friends.

However, Lou said things have started to get easier since his story was picked up by the media. "Fame works better than money," he said.