On July 14, 2026, the Silk Road heritage conservation technology advanced training program was launched in Dunhuang, bringing together trainees from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan to study alongside their Chinese counterparts.
Arid conditions have been key to preserving the Mogao Grottoes for thousands of years. However, meteorological data show that the region is becoming both warmer and wetter.
Since 2000, the rate of precipitation increase in Northwest China has been eight times that recorded between 1961 and 2000, according to meteorological data. Smart doors have been installed in select caves at Mogao and the Western Thousand-Buddha Caves. The doors respond with the rain, sand, or shine. They seal out moisture during the rain, lock tight against blowing sand and open to ventilate on clear days, optimizing the internal environment with every shift in weather. The system runs on real-time data from over 600 sensors placed in and around the grottoes. The monitoring center's big screens display everything in real time: cave temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide levels, visitor flow, and even rainfall and sandstorms across hundreds of kilometers around.
To get ahead of potential risks, researchers at the Dunhuang Academy's lab can simulate a range of weather conditions, from minus 30 degrees Celsius to 60 degrees Celsius, along with wind, rain, snow and sunlight. A full annual cycle can be recreated in just 40 to 50 days in the lab. This allows the team to "preview" how relics will age in the wild and, with that foresight, craft preservation strategies before any real damage occurs.
Today, the Mogao Grottoes are shielded by a comprehensive protection system that tackles multiple challenges ranging from sandstorms, creeping regional warmth to a rise in sudden, heavy rainfall as seen this summer. These hard-won approaches have crystallized into the "Dunhuang Solution" for grotto conservation, a framework now applied across the six grotto sites under the Dunhuang Academy's purview, including the Mogao Grottoes and the Yulin Grottoes, also in Gansu. Building on this success, Gansu province, home to over 200 grottoes, plans to integrate its broader grotto resources into the monitoring platform, with customized risk-mitigation strategies tailored to the specific conditions of each site.
Source: China Daily