Objectives  The scarcity of land resources has become an important factor restricting the development of some hilly cities and cutting mountains for land creation has become the most effective way for these cities to obtain land resources. However, land creation will cause serious air pollution, and how to monitor the spread of dust generated by land creation is of great significance.

  Methods  In this paper, remote sensing image, digital elevation model, meteorological data and air quality monitoring data are collected. Remote sensing change detection technology, wind erosion model and Aermod are combined, giving a prediction method of dust from land creation in Lanzhou northern mountain area, and experiments are carried out on the land creation in Lanzhou from 2013 to 2017.

  Results  From the change detection, it can be seen that the newly-added excavation area in Lanzhou northern mountain area shows a downward trend every year, while the Lanzhou new area has always been maintained at a relatively high level. And the direction of dust diffusion caused by land creation is consistent with the dominant wind direction in Lanzhou.

  Conclusions  Experimental results show that the dust pollution caused by wind erosion at the land creation area will affect the air quality of Lanzhou city and the influence degree is mainly determined by the scale of land creation, wind direction and speed, and the distance between the land creation area and the urban area. When the scale of land creation decreased and the main land creation area shifts to the north, the impact of air pollution in Lanzhou decreased, while the air quality around Lanzhou new area is still seriously affected.