Monitoring of Desertification in Inner Mongolia Based on MODIS Data

Desertification is nowadays a major problem facing mankind. The central region of Inner Mongolia is a serious and strong development area of desertification. In this paper, the NDVI and vegetation overlay derived from MODIS images are used in monitoring the grassland desertification. And the thematic maps of desertification distribution are extracted and compared by the year of 2004 and 2005. The results showed that, some severe desertification developed into a serious state, reflecting a degrading, while the eastern part of Xilin Gol League transferred from severe desertification into moderate, and both moderate and mild desertification have increased, providing an improvement of the desertification.