A STUDY ON THE LAND DEGRADATION IN THE NEIGHBO-URING AREAS BETWEEN SHANXI, SHAANXI AND INNER MONGOLIA BY USING REMOTE SENSING METHODS
黄土高原晋陕蒙毗邻地区土地退化遥感分析

Land degradations such as water and soil erosion, desertification, salinization, alkaliza-tion, swamping, loss of the fertility of soil, degradation of soil structure and soil pollution are caused by wind, water and human influence. The Loess Plateau is situated in the central part of China, with the area of 623.7 million ha. and has a arid and semi-arid continental monsoon climate, with strong winds in Spring and torrential rains in autumn. The landfonn gradually becomes higher from southeast to northwest, and the height difference is about 4 500 m. The original parent material is mainly loess. The vegetation coverage is tenuous and the soil is very poor. The results of the study by using remote sensing technology show that, in the Loess Pla-teau, the special natural conditions and the influence of human activity have caused severe land degradation such as water and soil erosion, land desertification. The area of land with water and soil erosion problems makes up more than 30% of the total area. There is 11.8 million ha desertified land, accounting for 18.91% of the total area. The land degradation in-dex(LDI) is more than 5. Thus, in the region, a very fragile environment was formed and land degradation was rapidly increased, which lead to the astonishing loss of soil fertility.