In some of China's most arid and harsh deserts, the land surrounding and under solar panel farms is turning into something lush. Not in the metaphorical sense of being environmentally friendly but in a literal sense, as grass and shrub growth, along with the soil crust, are appearing in places where hardly anything grew before. In the research paper titled “Solar photovoltaic program helps turn deserts green in China: Evidence from satellite monitoring,” published in the Journal of Environmental Management, researchers have analyzed the vegetation changes in China's biggest deserts from 2011 to 2018, during which the solar energy installation area increased from zero to more than 102.56 square kilometres.
