Review of Desert Mobility Assessment and Desertification Monitoring Based on Remote Sensing

Abstract

Desertification seriously hinders economic development and ecological security, which has led to increased research on desertification monitoring and control. Remote sensing technology is widely used in desert research due to its large detection range and ability to obtain target feature information without touching objects. In order to better monitor and control desertification, the research methods on desert mobility and dune morphology in mobile deserts were reviewed. Among them, an important index to distinguish mobile and nonmobile deserts is desert vegetation coverage. The research progress of desert vegetation coverage based on visual interpretation, the nonlinear spectral model, normalized vegetation index (NDVI) fitting and plant community classification was reviewed. The loss of vegetation in the transitional zone of the desert is a contributing factor to desertification. The new technologies and applications of desert area monitoring, the remote sensing ecological index, and desert feature information extraction were introduced and analyzed. To combat desertification more accurately and effectively, the classification methods of moving dunes based on deep learning were also reviewed. It can be concluded that desertification monitoring methods are gradually becoming more accurate and adaptive, but they remain insufficient and less mature. Therefore, exploring how to apply desertification control technology more scientifically and rationally is an extremely valuable area for research.