Change analysis of karst rocky desertification for almost 40 years: a case study of Guangxi, China

The paper first studied the geometric correction of historical CORONA satellite imagery in the 1960s and used the historical imagery to extract KRD (karst rocky desertification). The study area is located in the karst region of Guangxi Province, China. Finally, we used the Landsat-5 imagery to extract rocky desertification in 2005, then we could find the changes of the karst rocky desertification in Guangxi from 1960s to 2005 about nearly 40 years. And comparison analysis was conducted and the results showed that, over the 40 years, Guangxi karst rocky desertification area has significantly changed. Guangxi has typical karst environment and is one of the most serious areas of rocky desertification in southwest China provinces, thus our research on this has great practical significance.