Land desertification profoundly affects economic and social development, thus necessitating a collective response. Regional land control planning needs to assess the land sensitivity to desertification across different regions. In this study, we selected 12 factors from soil, vegetation, climate, and terrain aspects to calculate and evaluate Xinjiang’s land sensitivity to desertification, from 2001 to 2020, and analyzed its trends and drivers. The results indicated that the region is highly (22.93%) to extremely sensitive (34.63%) to desertification. Of these, deserts, Gobi lands, oasis–desert transitional zones, and the downstream of rivers are highly and extremely sensitive areas. Mountainous areas, oases, and along rivers are non- and mildly sensitive areas. Over the past two decades, most areas have experienced stability (45.07%) and a slight improvement of desertification (26.18%), while the Junggar Basin and Central Taklamakan Desert have seen slight and severe intensification trends, respectively. Climate-related indicators, such as surface temperature and potential evapotranspiration (PET), were identified as the most important drivers of changes in land sensitivity to desertification. Having an integrated water resource allocation and establishing the long-term monitoring of land sensitivity to desertification would have positive implications for desertification control.

The Xinjiang region is prone to frequent and complex wind and sand disasters, which present a significant challenge to the sustainable development of local areas. This research uses multi-source data to analyze the spatial distribution of the aeolian environment in Xinjiang, establishes a four-level zoning scheme, and proposes recommendations for ecological management and engineering and control. Results indicate that (1) Xinjiang’s aeolian environment and its types exhibit spatial heterogeneity. The aeolian environment types display a high concentration in the eastern region and a low concentration in the western region. Furthermore, the aeolian environment types are concentrated in the basin region. Moreover, the aeolian environment types exhibit a meridional distribution pattern. (2) A four-level zoning system for aeolian environments in Xinjiang was developed, comprising two first-level zones, seven s-level subzones, 22 third-level wind zones, and 31 fourth-level subdivisions. (3) A structural model for a highway sand control system is proposed for aeolian environment types of subdivisions, including fixing-based, combined blocking and fixing, wind-blocking and sand-transferring, and combined blocking and fixing–transferring. The aeolian environment regionalization program proposed in this study can be a scientific reference for relevant departments in formulating and implementing sand prevention and control planning.