Using MODIS Data to Assess Land Desertification in Ordos Plateau - Mu Us Sandy Land Case Study

摘要

The Ordos Plateau in the north of China is an environmental deteriorating region with extensive wind erosion, various aeolian sand hazards and severe desertification. With the extensive exploitation of coal and natural gas in future and increasing grazing pressure on grassland, the human activities have been strongly affecting the environment and induced land degradation. It is necessary to evaluate the potential of using remote sensing analysis in desertification monitoring and to develop a procedure for annual assessing and monitoring land desertification process with a long-term series of earth observation satellite data. The MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) onboard the Terra Earth Observing System platform offer unique opportunities to deduce environmental parameters and was used to derived the status quo desertification map in 2001. The study showed that MODIS data is useful for describing surface conditions and deriving land desertification information in the study region.