Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Arid Environments journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaridenv Soil deterioration in the southern Chihuahuan Desert caused by agricultural practices and meteorological events María de Jesús Guevara Macías a , Noel Carbajal a , José Tuxpan Vargas b,* a Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica A.C. Camino a la Presa San José 2055, CP, 78216, San Luis Potosí S.L.P, Mexico b Cátedras-CONACyT-Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica A.C. Camino a la Presa San José 2055, CP, 78216, San Luis Potosí S.L.P, Mexico ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Remote sensing Land use impact Desertification Arid zones ABSTRACT In arid and semi-arid regions, unregulated land use changes as a result of poor planning, and the expansion of agricultural and livestock activities increase the risk of desertification and other potentially severe environ- mental impacts. Several consequences of improper land management practices are soil deterioration and erosion, which may be intensified by meteorological events. This paper presents a historical evaluation of the temporal and spatial evolution of soil deterioration in the southern Chihuahuan Desert in Mexico. A multi-temporal analysis of the study area during the 1995–2016 period was carried out using satellite data (Landsat series). Two seasons were analyzed to determine the influence of external events such as rainfall and wind: dry and rainy. The identification of soil conditions was based on the Brightness Index (BI) considering the complete satellite data set. The soil conditions were classified into five categories according to their reflectance values: highly dete- riorated, deteriorated, in the process of being deteriorated, in good condition and other (clouds, water, non-soil). The change detection maps clearly show a growing trend wherein areas of deteriorated and eroded soil increase over time. Agriculture and strong winds are the two main factors involved in the soil deterioration process of the study region. 1. Introduction Land use change is generally a consequence of the exponential growth of the world's population and the expansion of urban areas. As the population increases, more land is needed to produce food and raw materials. Primary economic activities, including intensive agriculture and livestock activities, have often expanded into new areas without proper planning, modifying large tracts of land and leading to defor- estation. Crop expansion has affected different ecosystems, mainly grassland and forest regions. In tropical regions, croplands have ex- panded mostly at the expense of forest cover over the past 40–50 years (Gibbs et al., 2010). Several environmental problems resulting from massive land use changes, such as desertification, have been well documented. During the Dust Bowl era in the United States, the cultivation of large crop areas combined with drought created severe dust storms. Inadequate agricultural practices such as the implementation of monocultures and the removal of vegetation cover were the principal causes of this phe- nomenon (Schoijet, 2005; Ravi et al., 2009). Currently, China is another example of a country experiencing accelerated environmental de- gradation caused by deforestation, overgrazing, agricultural overexploitation and the exhaustion and contamination of aquifers. Since 1978, China has initiated economic reform and an open-door policy, leading to rapid land use and land cover changes across most of its territory (Weng, 2002). As a result, the rate of desertification in China has increased. For example, the areas surrounding the Gobi De- sert have undergone desertification because of overgrazing (Schoijet, 2005; Ravi, 2009). The impacts of agriculture in north-eastern China have caused the erosion of black soil to a depth of 0.4 m, resulting in a nearly 10% reduction in soybean production (Gao et al., 2014). In Mongolia, wind erosion and heavy grazing are the leading causes of sandy desertification and have triggered further impacts on the vege- tation cover in addition to hastening erosion processes, leading to the loss of soil structure and soil deterioration (Zhao et al., 2005). In Ar- gentina, about 80% of the territory is dedicated to agricultural or for- estry activities; however, these activities have similarly increased rates of soil erosion and degradation. Hence, the expansion of the agri- cultural frontier and unplanned deforestation appear to have severely degraded natural resources (Maris, 2000). In Mexico, more than 80% of agricultural land shows some degree of degradation as a result of monocultures, deforestation or livestock activities. Estimates obtained indicate that around 97% of the land https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2019.104097 Received 19 December 2018; Received in revised form 10 August 2019; Accepted 30 December 2019 * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: mdejesus.guevara@ipicyt.edu.mx (M. de Jesús Guevara Macías), noelc@ipicyt.edu.mx (N. Carbajal), jose.tuxpan@ipicyt.edu.mx (J.T. Vargas). Journal of Arid Environments 176 (2020) 104097 0140-1963/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T