The spatial distribution patterns of biological soil crusts in the Gurbantunggut Desert, Northern Xinjiang, China
- Author:
- Zhang Y.M., Chen J., Wang L., Wang X.Q. & Gu Z.H.
- Year:
- 2007
- Journal:
- Journal of Arid Environments
- Pages:
- 68: 599–610
- Url:
The Gurbantunggut Desert, the largest fixed and semi-fixed desert in China, is characterized by a
predominant coverage of lichen-dominated biological soil crusts, which serve an indispensable role in
sand fixation. Two findings of biological soil crusts have been disclosed from previous field observations:
first, distribution of biological soil crusts is selective upon locations; second, species composition varies
significantly for the biological soil crusts that are at different developing stages. In this study, a strategy
was developed to investigate the spatial distribution of biological soil crusts by coupling remote sensing
data and field measurements. A crust index for the Landsat ETM+data has been developed and applied
to detect the lichen-dominated biological soil crusts in the Gurbantunggut Desert. The results indicated
the South of the desert encompassed the most abundant biological soil crusts. Besides, biological soil
crusts were distributed in uniform density in the South of the desert whereas their distribution patterns
become patchier in the rest of the desert. Finally, statistics from the classification revealed that biological
soil crusts covered 28.7% of the land in the whole study area. However, it is worth mentioning that the
crusts coverage may be underestimated given the fact that detection of crusts from the Landsat ETM+
imagery is viable only if crusts constitute more than 33% of the instantaneous field of view (IFOV) of the
Landsat ETM+ sensor.
Keywords: Lichen-dominated soil crusts; Remote sensing; Spectral features; BSCI index
- Id:
- 12468
- Submitter:
- zdenek
- Post_time:
- Monday, 23 March 2009 10:21