Analysis of grassland desertification due to coal exploitation based on remote sensing

The grassland desertification information in Huolinhe opencast coalmine is extracted from remote sensing imageries by using decision tree and back-propagation(BP) neural network,and the desertification during the past 16 years in the research field is analyzed.The results indicate that ① there is a strong to weak,then weak to strong evolution process for the total grassland desertification,middle desertification and slight desertification,which can be attributed to climate change and human activities,especially to the influence of climate change;② due to coal exploitation,the severe desertification is always distributing in “ ” around the mining land,and developing to the east quickly with the help of monsoon.There is much correlation between the mining land and severe grassland desertification area,and the mining land area can be served as an important indicator for coalfield eco-environment assessment and prediction.