Abstract: The scientific environment knowledge is the basis for regional land sustainable utilization and desertification control in the complex and specific human-environment (H-E) system.For a typical desertification region,like Minqin County,how to understand the scientific environment knowledge about its desertification (e.g.,the process and mechanism) can help the prevention and cure of the desertification.This study concentrated on the scientific environment knowledge mining about Minqin's desertification based on knowledge domain mapping method together with the traditional literature review method,and then analyzed the knowledge structure and internal relationships using syndrome framework. The results drew the conclusions as follows:(1) There were a few teams,including CHANG Zhaofeng,et al.,XIAO Duning,et al.,JIE Yaowen,et al.,KANG Shaozhong,et al.,SUN Danfeng,et al.,FENG Qi,et al.,who conducted more reliable researches about Minqin which constituted the base to obtain local and scientific environment knowledge.Those researches mainly focused on 7 interrelated and coupled hotspots,namely the land use/cover,the desertification monitoring,and landscape pattern evolution,water resources utilization and monitoring,vegetation evolution and protection,environment changes and sandstorm and the climate and human activities. (2) The history of land desertification in Minqin in the late 60 years can be divided into two main phases,phase 1 from 1949 to 1998 and phase 2 from 2002 to 2010.In phase 1 it showed a vicious cycle from the growth of cultivated land to the aggravation of desertification,and in phase 2 it was still in the process where the cultivated land was increased and the natural vegetation was decreased although the desertification subsided and the groundwater recession slowed down. (3) The syndrome framework pointed out that the desertification in Minqin had been a syndrome produced jointed by the human activities and the nature factors which included the land use/cover,water resources,vegetation and their interactions.The knowledge mining and the syndrome framework can support the modeling and analysis of the environment scene and provide a reference for the setup of policy and measures in the future.

Key words: scientific environment knowledge, knowledge mining, knowledge domain mapping, syndrome, Minqin