RESEARCH ON LAND SANDY DESERTIFICATION WITH REMOTE SENSING
-Take Qinghai Lake Areas as an example
Jian Ji a ” b *, Chen Yuanyuan 3 , Yang wunian 3 , Tang nengfu 3
institute of RS and GIS, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, China,610059
international Institute of Earth System Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing,China, 210093
KEY WORDS: Land Sandy Desertification, Remote Sensing, ASTER, Qinghai Lake Areas
ABSTRACT:
The Qinghai Lake is the biggest salt lake in China, which is also a famous marsh in world. However it is sharply become depravation
because of the land sand desertification in the surrounding areas. In this paper, the basic natural, social and economic features were
elected to be analyzed in the area to assess land desertification in Qinghai lake areas at first; then the environment background of land
sandy desertification was specified; at last, the authors made an integrative assessment and discussion on land sandy desertification in
Qinghai lake areas with MSS and ASTER satellite image.
1 INTRODUCTION
Land Sandy Desertification does many harm to human beings,
it not only intimidates the environment, but also has grievous
effects on survival of man as well as sustainable development
of circumstance and society. For example, the granule’s
declining and thick grain’s creasing in the substance on the
earth, nutrient decreasing in soil and fertility declining and
productivity decreasing of soil are all effected by it(Liu
Yuping,1998).
China is a grave Land Sandy Desertification country, who has
334,000km 2 desert land,37,000 km 2 sand land and 1,162,000
km 2 Gobi sand land, with the proportion of 15.9% in this
country. Land Sandy Desertification bring serious zoology and
social effect in this country, the more and more sand storm in
this country is a significant example!Wang Tao, Zhao
Halin,1999, Wang Tao, et al,1998, Cha Yong, et al,1997, Dong
Yuxiang, 1995).
The Qinghai Lake, located in the northeast of Qingzang
tableland, is the largest inland salty lake and famous marsh in
the world. By far, around the Qinghai Lake, sand area has
increased to 403 hm 2 and the natural shrub area has decreased
from 34 hm 2 to 14 hm 2 . At the same time, in-flood water has
decreased 60% since 1950s.There is 140 thousand km 2
degeneration grass around Qinghai Lake, with the area account
to 34.9% of the total grass land. The area of sand has reached to
765 km 2 , at the speed of more than 10 km 2 every year.
By the research on the Land Sandy Desertification around
Qinghai Lake, the paper attempt to give a general evaluation on
the mechanism of the Land Sandy Desertification, and bring
forward some scientific suggestions.
Qinghai Lake. This paper do the research on the situation of
vegetation distribution around the Qinghai Lake, the Buha Lake,
the Jimen River, the Jun Rive, the Shaliu River and Qilian
mountain chain.
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2 METHODS
2.1 Study Area
The Qinghai Lake locates in the north of Qinghai province of
China, with the scope of north latitude 36°50’—37°30’and east
longitude 99°10’—99°50’, it is the biggest slight salt tableland
inland lake in the country with the area of 4304.5km2.The
average depth of the lake is 21m. Figure 1 is the sketch map of
Figure 1. Location of Study Area
The study area has the following Characters:
• Physiognomy: the hypsography is high in the northwest
and low in the southeast, and the physiognomy type is
mainly Lake shore ladder land, constructed tableland,
denudation hilly-land and so on.
• Climate: The climate belongs to the tableland mainland
climate, which is cool, dry windy> Air temperature
rather low > obvious difference in region n cool in
Corresponding author. E-mail:jianji@21cn.com
