Abstract: The colour infrared aerial photo is one of the key sort of the remote sensing imagery information sources. In China, this sort of photo is extensively utilized for the interpretation of different monographic contents. In the study, the property of colour infrared aerial photo and its interpretive characteristics are briefly discussed, and stressly discribed the interpretations of the degree of desertification and factors of desertification. The features of desertification on photo are described from the viewpoints of the shape, size, colour and shadow. The interpretative indicators of land desertification which caused by physical and human factors are introduced. These indicators are summerized on the basis of the experiences in the field of aerial photo interpretation in last decads,