One of the components of the desertification problem is the struggle against mobile sand dunes. Mobile dunes bury irrigated and rainfed agricultural lands, settlements, canals, railways, highways, and buildings, causing substantial losses to local populations and disrupting economic activity. According to data from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the total area of land affected by desertification worldwide amounts to 48.3 million square kilometers, representing 36.3% of the Earth's land surface. The world's sandy deserts, which serve as the source areas of mobile dunes, account for approximately one-third to one-half of the total area of true deserts, estimated at 14.01 million square kilometers. In the Soviet Union, sandy lands covered approximately 1 million square kilometers, or more than 4% of the country's territory. Mobile dunes constituted 12-15% of the total sandy area. In the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic alone, sandy lands occupied about 257,000 square kilometers, of which 40,000 square kilometers consisted of mobile and semi-mobile dunes. These sandy regions included the Karakum sands, coastal sands, the northeastern margin of the Uzboy region, the Yaskhan massif, and certain sandy tracts along the Murghab River, among others. Mobile dunes were also found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and the lower Volga region. Mobile dunes within sandy deserts are generally regarded as products of aeolian activity, resulting from high wind velocities, low precipitation, sparse vegetation cover, and the widespread occurrence of unconsolidated Quaternary deposits. Fragility and instability are characteristic features of sandy-desert landscapes. Mobile dunes are dynamic landforms whose movement depends on the direction and strength of prevailing winds as well as on sediment grain-size composition. At present, with the growing intensity of industrial and agricultural exploitation of desert resources, disruption of the dynamic equilibrium of these environments has been observed in many areas. Wind erosion of sand has begun to exceed the processes of vegetation establishment and stabilization. Stable landforms are gradually being replaced by typical mobile forms. Over time, the original landscapes of deserts, semi-deserts, and arid steppes, which possess relatively developed vegetation cover that stabilizes the surface layers of sand and sandy loam, are progressively transformed into landscapes dominated by mobile sand dunes.