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The Guadalentin basin, located in the SE of Spain, has a semiarid climate and presents the typical characteristics of mediterranean landscapes vulnerable to land degradation processes and desertification risks. In such an environment, when the vegetation cover is low, the signal received by satellites is dominated by the spectral properties of soils. Changes in these properties can be interpreted in terms of varying soil surface conditions. These optical changes underline the major modifications affecting soil surface under land degradation processes. This research uses remote sensing techniques to characterize land degradation based on two approaches: the spectral mixture analysis and a set of indices describing the spectrum shape. Specific objectives consist in evaluating the potential of extending the color-derived indices to the short-wave infrared region, and in identifying landscape units according to their sensitivity to land degradation.