Study on Sandy Desertification in China——3. Key Regions for Studying and Combating Sandy Desertification

Sandy desertification is land degradation through wind erosion resulted from inharmony man-land correlation in arid, semiarid and semi-humid regions, and it is one kind of desertification in China. Compared with original desert and grave desert the formation and development of desertification has its different space-time, vary dominant causes and distinct reversibility. In order to provide scientific guiding for the decision-making of sandy desertification controlling strategy and the implementation of technical measures it is required to define the key regions of sandy desertification research and combating based on the researches of basic issues and principal contents. Then the national sandy desertification controlling engineering can achieve its optimal effect even without adequate investment but on principle of adjust measures to local conditions. After summarizing the field surveying information and remote sensing and GIS monitoring data for last 50 years the author points out that sandy desertification land in China mainly distribute in the farming-grazing interlocked area and the steppe area of semiarid zones, the oasis rim and the lower inland river reaches of arid zone. These areas belong to the land-degraded region due to interaction between human activity and fragile eco-environment, and the sandy desertification land of China in the past 50 years mainly extended in this region. As key regions of sandy desertification research in North China sandy desertified lands in these areas can be classified into 4 large regions and 29 sub-regions according to the time-space distributing characteristics, the naturally zonal principle and the developing intensity principle.