Quantitative Assessment of Desertification Using Landsat Data on a Regional Scale – A Case Study in the Ordos Plateau, China 英文参考文献.docVIP

Sensors 2009, 9, 1738-1753; doi:10.3390/OPEN ACCESS sensors ISSN 1424-8220 /journal/sensors Article Quantitative Assessment of Desertification Using Landsat Data on a Regional Scale – A Case Study in the Ordos Plateau, China Duanyang Xu 1, 3, Xiangwu Kang 2 , Dongsheng Qiu 3 , Dafang Zhuang 1, 3,* and Jianjun Pan 1 1 Collage of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, Jiangsu Province, P.R. China; E-Mails: duanyang_xu@126.com (D.X.); jpan@ (J.P.) 2 Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China, Beijing 100038, P.R. China; E-Mail: kangxw@ (X.K.) 3 State Key Lab of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, P.R. China; E-Mail: qiuds@ (D.Q.) * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: zhuangdf@; Tel.: +86-10Received: 2 December 2008, in revised version: 4 February 2009 / Accepted: 6 March 2009 / Published: 12 March 2009 Abstract: Desertification is a serious threat to the ecological environment and social economy in our world and there is a pressing need to develop a reasonable and reproducible method to assess it at different scales. In this paper, the Ordos Plateau in China was selected as the research region and a quantitative method for desertification assessment was developed by using Landsat MSS and TM/ETM+ data on a regional scale. In this method, NDVI, MSDI and land surface albedo were selected as assessment indicators of desertification to represent land surface conditions from vegetation biomass, landscape pattern and micrometeorology. Based on considering the effects of vegetation type and time of images acquired on assessment indictors, assessing rule sets were built and a decision tree approach was used to assess desertification of Ordos Plateau in 1980, 199