Background  It is of great significance to identify the influencing factors of land desertification for formulating desertification disaster prevention and promoting the harmonious development of human and nature.

Methods  Based on the desertification and meteorological data of Yulin city from 2000-2014, this paper used gray relational analysis, partial correlation analysis and principal component analysis to study the effects of 6 climatic factors and 8 human factors on the land area changes in areas with different desertification levels. By identifying the main driving factors, a prediction model of desertification area was constructed.

Results  1) Except for the increase in the area of potential desertification land, the areas of other types of desertification land in Yulin city decreased significantly. 2) The results of driving force analysis showed that the cumulative contribution rate of human factors and climate factors was 52.98 % and 38.17 % respectively. It indicated that desertification in study area was still mainly affected by human activities. 3) The cubic regression model better simulated the area changes of different types of desertification, and the model interpretation (R²) reached 40 %-66 %.

Conclusions  The results of this paper may provide reference for assessing the impact of future climate change on desertification and formulating desertification disaster prevention and control countermeasures.