Abstract: As a very serious problem to China, desertification distributes widely, occupies a very large area, and earns a high, serious level of hazard. During the past decades, a certain amount of achievements had been obtained in desertification control, but the desertified land was still restored in some local regions, and meanwhile, desertification has been expanding rapidly as a whole and the trend seems worsening. Now desertification control is facing severe situations in China. Drought is the basic background condition for development of desertification, while unreasonable human activities resulting from fast increasing of population and backward mode of production and management, such as over-reclamation, over-grazing, unrestricted cutting, squandered water resources and indiscriminate mining, are the main causes of rapid wide-spreading of present desertification in China. Desertified land should be tackled in a comprehensive way that combines prevention, amelioration and exploitation. And what's more, in order to speed up desertification control, the government should formulate a preferential policy for desertification areas.

Key words: desertification, cause, control way