Abstract: The deserts are one of important components of the terrestrial ecosystems, and the vegetation biomass carbon storage in the deserts is an important research content in the carbon cycle of terrestrial ecosystem. The arid region of Central Asia is located in the center of Eurasia, and it is also one of the most important arid regions in the world. The five nations of Central Asia and the Junggar Desert of China are the main part of the arid region of Central Asia, where the climate and vegetation composition are similar. However, the research of vegetation biomass carbon storage is still almost in blank. Based on a large scale survey of live biomass carbon of different vegetation types in the Junggar Desert and combined with the vegetation atlas of Central Asia, the preliminary evaluation of vegetation carbon storage was performed by the average-biomass computing method. The result showed that the area of arid region of Central Asia is 310.37×10⁴ km² and the total vegetation biomass carbon storage is 57.03×10⁷ t. The aboveground and belowground carbon storages are 28.87×10⁷ t and 28.16×10⁷ t respectively, which account for 50.63% and 49.37%. The vegetation type of temperate semi-shrub and dwarf semi-shrub exhibites the largest carbon storages （14.17×10⁷ t, accounting for 24.84%） among seven vegetation types. The average biomass carbon density of arid region of Central Asia is 1.837 t/hm², and the vegetation type of temperate dwarf semi-tree shows the highest value of carbon density （2.367 t/hm²）. It can be predicted that under condition of increasing precipitation in Central Asia in the future, there will be more potential vegetation carbon sink in this region.

Key words: Central Asia, Junggar Basin, biomass carbon storage, quadrat sampling method, arid areas, vegetation , types