Karst rocky desertification is a progressive process of land degradation in karst regions in which soil is severely, or completely, eroded. This process may be caused by natural factors, such as geological structure, and population pressure leading to poor ecosystem health and lagging economic development. Karst rocky desertification is therefore a significant obstacle to sustainable development in southwest China. We applied a radial basis function network model to assess the risk of karst rocky desertification in northwest Guangxi, a typical karst region located in southwest China. Factors known to influence karst rocky desertification were evaluated using remote sensing and geographic information systems techniques to classify the 23 counties in the study area from low to extreme risk of karst rocky desertification. Counties with extreme or strong karst rocky desertification risk (43.48%, nearly half of the study area) were clustered in the north, central and southeast portions of the study area. Counties with low karst rocky desertification (30.43%) were located in the west, northeast and southwest of the study area. The spatial distribution of karst rocky desertification was moderately correlated to population density.

In this investigation we analyzed the spatiotemporal variation of ecosystem service values (ESVs) and its correlation with numerous environmental factors (EFs) for the karst region of Northwest Guangxi, China, from 1985 to 2005 using remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical techniques. The results indicate that historically ESVs for this karst region decreased from 1985 (109.652 billion Yuan) to 1990 (88.789 billion Yuan) and then increased at the turn of the twenty-first century. However, the ESVs in both 2000 (103.384 billion Yuan) and 2005 (106.257 billion Yuan) never achieved the level recorded in 1985. The total of nutrient cycling, organic production and gas regulation combined were 72.69, 64.57, 70.18 and 72.10% of ESVs in 1985, 1990, 2000 and 2005, respectively. In contrast, the ESVs of water conservation, soil reservation, recreation and culture were determined to be relatively low contributing only 17.44, 23.82, 19.26 and 24.76% of total ESVs, respectively, during these four years. With regards to the spatial distribution of ESVs, larger values were recorded in the west and smaller ones recorded in the east. The most significant factors that were deemed to influence ESVs are annual rainfall, per capita cropland, slope and vegetation coverage. Annual rainfall and slope exert a negative force, whereas per capita cropland and vegetation coverage exert a positive force on ESVs. The results of the study would suggest that ecosystem conditions of this important karst region have been improved as the result of the implementation of rocky desertification control policies.