Arid and semi-arid areas play an important role in the system of global climate change. The growing concern about climate change and environmental problems has led to a number of land surface processes studies over arid areas. One of the land surface processes experiments, Arid Environment Comprehensive Monitor Plan, 95 (AECMP’95), was carried out in a heterogeneous desertification arid area of northwest China from August 1 to August 21 1995. The purpose of AECMP’95 is to study land–atmosphere interaction between oasis and Gobi desert in arid and semi-arid areas. Four observation sites over the oasis fringe region were located at D1 (39.3889°E, 100.0351°N), D2 (39.3936°N, 100.0314°E), O1 (39.3858°N, 100.0361°E) and O2 (39.3755°N, 100.0371°E). D1 and D2 were in Gobi desert, and O1 and O2 in oasis. During the experimental period, one PBL tower and radiation observation system at the desert of HEIFE (39.3799° N, 100.1533°E) were also in operation . The observational items of AECMP’95 are shown in . The vegetation states are: crop field in oasis and Gobi desert with some thin plant in D1, D2 and desert site.

Distributions of regional land surface variables, vegetation variables and land surface heat fluxes over the AECMP’95 area were analyzed using a new parameterized method of combining satellite remote sensing with field observations. The results show that reasonable regional distribution of surface reflectance, surface temperature, modified soil adjusted vegetation index, vegetation coverage, net radiation, soil heat flux and sensible heat flux over heterogeneous arid area in northwestern China can be obtained by using this method. This technique is still in the development stage, the derived latent heat flux shows a bit higher trend than the observed values over the whole study area. The recommendations of improving the scheme are also presented.