Remote Sensing Monitoring of Dynamic Changes of Vegetation Coverage in Wusiman area of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region

The ecological environment in Wusiman area (mid-stream of Tarim River, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) is extremely weak with little yearly rainfall. Relying on the information technology of RS, GPS and GIS, SPOTS of Wusiman area in 2003, 2004 and 2005, plus CBERS in 2008, together with other ulti-source summer remote sensing images and basic background data are collected and analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The methods of system classification, conversion model building, remote sensing extraction and interpretation are applied to the investigation as well as field investigation and databases warehouse building technology. The potential vegetation coverage is categorized into four groups: poor, lower, moderate and satisfactory, respectively. The research suggests that the lower and moderate vegetation coverage area increases annually and the poor area continues to decrease, while the satisfactory area is fluctuating with little change in the most parts of research area, but some parts reverses evidently during the research. In other words, the ecological environment under investigation shows a positive trend to develop as a whole but the vegetation coverage goes up at the expense of the decrease of waters. The sustainable positive trend, therefore, will not be able to be guranteened without properiate prevention and guide.