The Tarim Desert Highway is the longest highway crossing the mobile desert in the world. The highway and its sand protection system were established in 1995. This great project must have significant effect on the aeolian environment in its neighborhoods. In 2004, we investigated the topographic changes of ground surface within the sand protection system and its external adjacent area in the hinterland of the Taklimakan Desert. The results showed that (i) the original topographic patterns of ground surface were greatly changed, and erosion as well as deposition was distributed clearly on the ground surface, affected by the road and its sand protection system; (ii) sediment deposited in the sand protection system gradually heightened the ground surface, but each part in the system changed differently: in the sand-blocking belt, a transverse sand ridge was formed in the same direction as the upright sand barrier; in the sand-binding belt, sediment was aggraded on the original surface in a certain thickness; at the initial stages since the establishment of the sand protection system, erosion had taken place in the un-stabilized area named by the deposition belt between the sand-blocking belt and the sand-binding belt, the inner of sand-binding belt, the windward slope of dunes in the sand-binding belt, and the neighboring leeward area of the sand protection system.