Spatial distribution of sandy desertification change in the west of Jilin Province

The sandy land of the western part of Jilin Province is located in the ecotone of semi-humid and semi-arid area in the temperate zone of China. The sandy desertification has widely spread in the region because of the vulnerable natural conditions and the unreasonable human activity; as a result of this, the precious land resources and the economic development in the area have been seriously impacted. In this paper, the sandy land ecologic environment geographic information system is established based on the multi-spectral, multi-temporal Landsat TM images and field investigation. The comprehensive indexes of sandy desertification extent assessment which include vegetation degradation, wind erosion extent and soil depth are presented to classify the sandy land in western Jilin into three levels--slight, moderate and severe sandy desertification with the support of GIS platform. The results demonstrate that the sandy desertification has been partly controlled in the past twenty years, except some small sites. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that there is nothing for more concern. The two main causes of sandy desertification have not been eliminated yet, one is its natural factor, especially the physical and chemical characters of sandy soil and dry climate; another is the immoderate economic activity of human being that has highly accelerated the sandy desertification process.