A man walks amongst the dunes of the Tennger desert, near the Shapotou desert resort in Ningxia Province. © Sean Gallagher
A severe sandstorm in central Ningxia province shrouds the land in a surreal yellow, almost orange, light. The already dry and degraded topsoil is easily picked up when the spring winds start to blow. © Sean Gallagher
A sandstorm disrupts local life in Ningxia Province. © Sean Gallagher
A painting of traditional Inner Mongolian life hangs in the living room of farmers on the Inner Mongolian steppes. This traditional life disappeared in the 1980s. © Sean Gallagher
Faint glimpses of traditional life on the grasslands remain as a tourist in traditional dress adjusts her clothing. © Sean Gallagher
A woman protects herself from the airborne sand which has descended on the town of Minfeng in Xinjiang province. The town’s proximity to the Taklamakan desert means it is regularly bombarded by sandstorms. © Sean Gallagher
A small market next to a dried-up river in Xinjiang Province, western China. © Sean Gallagher
Fish on sale in a small market in the town of Hongsibao in Ningxia Province, central China. © Sean Gallagher
A young boy in the town of Hongsibao, a community that was built in the desert to rehouse refugees relocated from nearby land affected by increasing desertification. © Sean Gallagher
The banks of a reservoir in Minqin County, Gansu Province. © Sean Gallagher
A worker sleeps amongst the sand dunes and forest at the Shapotou desert resort in Ningxia Province. © Sean Gallagher
Human remains scatter the floor in the abandoned city of Yinpan, a result of a combination of natural erosion revealing graves and disturbance by tomb-robbers. © Sean Gallagher
A tractor drives through dry and barren lands in Gansu Province, China. © Sean Gallagher
A man pushes his bicycle through a severe sandstorm on the outskirts of the town of Hongsibao, in Ningxia Province. © Sean Gallagher
A farmer brings in his cattle at sunrise on the Inner Mongolian steppes. Due to new regulations, the farmers of the region are now not allowed to graze their cattle, although many risk prosecution and graze their cattle at night, under the cover of darkness. © Sean Gallagher
A construction crew working in a sandstorm in Ningxia Province. © Sean Gallagher
Dead poplar trees stand on the edge of the Taklamakan desert in China's western Xinjiang Province. © Sean Gallagher
A mural on a wall in the deserts of western Inner Mongolia. © Sean Gallagher
Smoke bellows from a lone factory in the deserts of western Inner Mongolia © Sean Gallagher
Visibility during a sandstorm in Ningxia Province is reduced to all but a couple of hundred meters. © Sean Gallagher