A monitoring method of land cover land use change in Naiman, inner Mongolia autonomous region, China using Landsat data

Naiman Qi is located on the eastern edge of the Horqin desert and has recently experienced desertification. The desertification has progressed due to overgrazing and overcutting and fixed sand dunes began to move again in this area. In this study, we intended to develop a monitoring method of land cover/land use changes using Landsat data in order to analyze the progression of desertification. First, we were able to define the area that underwent desertification (hereafter referred to as ''desertified area'') using the following 3 indices; vegetation [(TM 4 - TM 3)/(TM 4 + TM 3)], structure [(TM 5 - TM 1)/(TM 5 + TM 1)], and redness [(TM 3 - TM 1)/(TM 3 + TM 1)]. We determined the yearly changes by superimposing the desertified areas identified based on data from different years. Second, we developed a monitoring method of land cover/land use changes to analyze the changes in the desertified areas. These methods enabled us to obtain basic information for clarifying the desertification processes.