Characteristics of Desertification Change in Lake Basin Area in Gangcha County

Abstract

Qinghai Lake Basin area in Gangcha county is selected as the study area in terms of desertification change features in this paper. Based on the remote sensing (RS) and global positioning system (GPS) technologies, the desertification information range from 1989 to 2014 in the study area is extracted. Using the method of the decision tree, the desertification in the research area is been divided into four grades including mild desertification, moderate desertification, severe desertification and serious desertification. The change characteristics of desertification in the study area were analyzed in detail, which showed that the desertification in the study area experienced a process of first development and then a reversal. The rapid development of desertification appears in the 1990s, where about 1101.22 kilometers of desertification area was increased in this stage. Since the twenty-first Century, the desertification is gradually significant recovered and local area exist intensified desertification. There are tendencies of interactive transform in different types of desertification. The tendencies of different degrees of desertification land are rising, and there’re some differences in rising rates, where the expansion rate of moderate desertification is the biggest, increasing by 7.27 kilometers per year.