The farming and grazing interlocked transitional zone along the Great Wall in northern
Shaanxi Province is particularly vulnerable to desertification due to its fragile ecosystem and intensive
human activity. Studies reveal that desertification is both a natural and anthropogenic process.
Four desertification indicators (vegetative cover, proportion of drifting sand area, desertification rate,
and population pressure) were used to assess the severity of desertification in a GIS. The first three
factors were derived from multitemporal remote sensing and land inventory data. The last factor
was calculated from census data. It was found that the overall severity of land degradation in the
study area has worsened during the last two decades with severely, highly and moderately degraded
land accounting for 84.2% of the total area in 1998. While the area affected by desertification has
increased, the rate of desertification has also accelerated from 0.74 to 0.87%. Risk of land degradation
in the study area has increased, on an average, by 155% since 1985. Incorporation of both natural
and anthropogenic factors in the analysis provides realistic assessment of risk of desertification.