STUDY AND MAPPING OF DEGRADATION OF THE ARALKUM DESERT
Ключевые слова:
degradation, desertification, satellite images, Landsat-5, NDVI, SI, TCT.Аннотация
Desertification is a land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas as a result of various
factors, including climate change and human activities. The Aral Sea is called the once large, and now almost dry,
salt lake, which today looks like a large salt desert. Its drying is considered one of the greatest environmental
disasters of our time, because only 50 years ago it was one of the four largest lakes on our planet. In the 1990s, the
western world learned about the environmental disaster of what used to be the fourth largest lake in the world - The
Aral Sea. The abrupt drying of the Aral Sea led to the intensive development of desertification processes in the
region and the formation of the new man-made Aralkum desert.
The main method for determining the soil degradation of the Aralkum desert is the calculation of indices. The
selected methods are widely known and repeatedly applied in world practice methods for processing satellite images.
So, all of the listed spectral indices are universal. The uniqueness of this technique lies in the determination of the
exact ranges of values for each of the spectral indices in the identification of various indicators of desertification.
