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An experiment was implemented in 1997 in the Horqin Sandy Land of Inner Mongolia, China to evaluate the effects of different measures of stabilizing sand dune on vegetation restoration. The measures included (1) building corn straw fencing, (2) placing wheat straw checkerboard, and (3) planting Artemisia halodendron on the dunes. The preliminary results from the first 2 years (1998 and 1999) demonstrate that all the three measures could result in significant increases of plant species diversity, vegetation cover, above-ground biomass and below-ground biomass on the moving sand dunes relative to the naturally restored plot (without taking any measures). However, both placing wheat straw checkerboard and planting Artemisia halodendron performed best and thus are considered to be the most promising techniques for the restoration of vegetation on desertified sandy lands in this area. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.