| Abstract: | In order to study land use and cover changes (LUCC), especially urbanization accompanied soil degradation, authors used Asia DMSP/OLS data in 1992, Land Cover Data of Asia in 1992 and Global Assessment of Human Induced Soil Degradation (GLASOD, by ISRIC) in 1992, etc. In China the major type of soil degradation is water erosion, which is widely distributed especially in Loess Plateau and in Southeast and Southwest China and happened in forestland, grassland and arable land and mainly resulted from deforestation. The secondary type is wind erosion, which is mainly distributed in Northwest China and happened in arable land and grassland and was mainly caused by overgrazing. Chemical deterioration is mainly distributed in North and Northwest China and happened in paddy, arable land and grassland. Physical deterioration only concentrated in local area in North China and happened in arable land and paddy. Chemical and physical deterioration were resulted from unreasonable agricultural activity. From city to city + 200km with different distance away from city, different types and strength of human activities resulted in different types and distributions of soil degradation. In China human activity mainly concentrated within city+ 50km, therefore, accompanied soil degradation, such as chemical and physical deterioration, mainly happened near and around city. |
