ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Estimation of areas of sand and dust emission in the Hexi
Corridor from a land cover database: an approach that combines
remote sensing with GIS
C. Z. Yan Æ Y. M. Zhou Æ X. Song Æ H. C. Duan
Received: 24 January 2008 / Accepted: 14 April 2008 / Published online: 6 May 2008
Ó Springer-Verlag 2008
Abstract The present study combined remote sensing
with geographical information system (GIS) technology to
interpret Landsat TM images from 1996 to 2000 and
establish a land cover database for the Hexi Corridor of
China’s Gansu Province. The areas of sand and dust
emission and trends in their change were extracted by
analyzing the database, with the following results: In
2000, the source area for sand and dust storms totaled
nearly 170,000 km
2
, accounting for 75.1% of the study
region. The emission area decreases from as much as
70,000 km
2
in winter and spring to around 58,000 km
2
in
summer and autumn, accounting for 41.1 and 34.1% of the
source area, respectively. During the 4 years of the study
period, the emission area decreased by nearly 57 km
2
in
winter and spring (a 0.1% change); however, the vulner-
ability of the land surface to wind erosion increased in ca.
190 km
2
and decreased in ca. 102 km
2
. Although the area
of dust emission decreased from 1996 to 2000, the area
vulnerable to wind erosion increased by ca. 87 km
2
, and
the increased number of sand and dust storm days in the
region between 2000 and 2003 appears to be correlated
with this increase.
Keywords Remote sensing Á GIS Á Hexi Corridor Á
Sand and dust storm source area Á Dynamic analysis
Introduction
Sand and dust storms (hereafter, ‘‘sandstorms’’) have not
only caused economic losses, reduced land fertility,
damaged soil structure, and degraded vegetation quality
(Zhu and Cui 1996), but have also damaged the ecological
environment of northern and northwestern China, inter-
fered with the economic and social development of the
affected regions, and created clouds of sand and dust that
adversely affected southern China and even neighboring
countries. During 2000–2003, intense sandstorms have
occurred frequently, resulting in severe damage in the Hexi
Corridor of China’s Gansu Province (Dong et al. 2003).
This region is the main region outside the Tarim Basin of
Xinjiang Autonomous Region in which sandstorms
occurred frequently in northwestern China (Qiu et al. 2001;
Li 2004; Wang et al. 2006). On 5 May 1993, a single
devastating sandstorm in the Hexi Corridor caused an
estimated loss of 550 million RMB (nearly US$70 million
at an exchange rate of around 8 RMB per US$). As a result
of the storm, travel along the railway from Lanzhou to
Urumqi was halted for a week, the Jinchuan Colored Metal
Co. was forced to stop production, and in some areas,
sandy desert advanced by 8 m. On 31 December 2000,
another severe sandstorm occurred in the region, and the
December date represented the earliest recorded storm in
recent years. From 31 December 2000 to 20 May 2001,
sandstorms occurred on 10–20 days in various parts of the
Hexi Corridor (Ye et al. 2000; Cheng et al. 2007).
Sandstorms only begin in regions where the land has
little or no vegetation cover or surface rocks that can
C. Z. Yan (&) Á X. Song Á H. C. Duan
Key Laboratory of Desert and Desertification,
Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering
Research Institute,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 260,
West Donggang Road, Lanzhou, Gansu Province 730000, China
e-mail: yancz@lzb.ac.cn
Y. M. Zhou
Institute of Remote Sensing Applications, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Datun Road, Chaoyang Borough, 9718 Mailbox,
Beijing 100101, China
e-mail: zhouym@irsa.ac.cn
123
Environ Geol (2009) 57:707–713
DOI 10.1007/s00254-008-1349-2