The Baotou bureau of forestry and grass organized the banners, counties and districts in the city – located in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region – to start the comprehensive monitoring of local grasslands in July.

As of Sept 15, the bureau had completed field surveys on 140 plots, with a completion rate of 82.8 percent.

The initiative was designed to fully assess the current situation, quality and changes of grassland resources in areas administered by the city and to provide a decision-making basis for grassland protection and restoration, supervision and management, forest chief inspections and assessments and the development of grassland carbon sinks.

The comprehensive monitoring of grasslands is based on the results of the third national land survey and the 2021 national land change survey as a unified base map, while a total of 169 monitoring surveillance systems have been set up in the terrain.

The bureau deployed 10 field investigation teams for its banners, counties and districts. The teams mainly comprised technical backbone staff members from the forestry and grass work departments in those various categories of area administered by the city. At the same time, personnel from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Forest and Grass Survey and Planning Institute, the Baotou Forest and Grass Resources Protection Station and the Baotou Municipal Forest and Grass Workstation provided technical support.

The team members are understood to have overcome challenges such as complex terrain and extreme weather.

In addition, they steadily advanced the monitoring work according to a set timetable, to ensure that the complete monitoring of the grassland ecology of the city was completed with efficiency and to a high standard.