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Review of the research on desertification assessment in China |
Bian Zhen,Zhang Kebin |
Key Lab.of Soil & Water Conservation and Desertification Combating,Ministry of Education,College of Soil and Water Conservation,Beijing Forest University,100083,Beijing,China |
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Abstract An accurate desertification assessment with comprehensiveness and timeliness could be helpful to the making of efficient measures for the desertification combating.China is one of the countries suffering severe desertification in the world.This paper comprehensively summarized the research achievements about desertification assessment index system,methods and benchmark during the last 30 years, pointed out that assessment index system based on the principles of landscape ecology and remote sensing technology had become a research hotspot in recent years.However,the problems of indefinite selection criteria of indicators,subjective grade threshold and lack of credibility on assessment results were still unresolved.After the review of strengths and weaknesses of assessment models,including Euclidean distance method and desertification index,etc.,it was pointed out that desertification assessment methods combining with the landscape ecology and 3S technologies have gradually presented the features of multi-scale,quantitative and convenient in recent years while the reliability still need to be verified.The main points of desertification benchmark were introduced and the goal of desertification control was proposed to be selected as a benchmark.
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Received: 05 June 2009
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