Abstract: Using the rocky desertification data from remote sensing survey，this paper researched rocky desertification distribution and evolution during the past nearly decade from 1999 to 2008 in the karst areas of southwest China, including spatial region, carbonate lithology，karst topography，economic development and so on, and analyzed preliminarily the influencing factors of rocky desertification. The result shows that the distribution of rocky desertification concentrates in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi provinces，and rocky desertification distribution is closely related to the different lithologic compositions and karst geomorphologies; the occurrence rate of rocky desertification is higher in the pure carbonate rock than that in the impure，decreasing with limestone or carbonate becoming smaller; the occurrence rate is the highest in the peak forest and cluster topography which is high terrain elevation and easily occurs rocky desertification, decreasing with the relative height of landscape becoming smaller. And correlations between desertification extent and lithology or landform are diverse, and the proportion of lowextent rocky desertification is higher than the proportion of moderateand severeextent in pure carbonate rocks, but the proportion of moderateand severeextent rocky desertification is higher than the proportion of the low extent in impure carbonate; the proportion of lowextent rocky desertification is higher than that of the moderateand severeextent in peak depression and plain landforms, and the proportion of moderateand severeextent rocky desertification is higher than that of the low extent in hilly terraces and hilly valley, and all those are affected by tectonic environment evolution and human activities. At the same time, from 1999 to 2008, it had become a good trend of rocky desertification evolution to reduce the total area and to relieve the extent, and the trend for worsening occurrence rate or improvement of the evolution process is similar to the distribution of different carbonate lithologies and karst topographies. Besides above all, rocky desertification also affect the living standard of the residents: the rocky desertification area of the severeextent rocky desertification county is negative correlation with farmers average net income or per capita GDP; the area size of countys rocky desertification is the most important factor affecting per capita GDP, as well as farmers per capita income. Therefore, the remote sensing survey of the period of rocky desertification indicates that there is a good trend of rocky desertification in the study area, but governance difficulties still exist.

Key words: rocky desertification, distribution, statistical analysis, karst area, southwest China