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Arid Land Geography ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (10): 1688-1699.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2023.734

• Climatology and Hydrology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Area change characteristics of Wuliangsuhai Lake driven by climate change and human activities in the basin in the past 40 years

SUN Jinrong1(), LI Xing2(), WEI Jingting3   

  1. 1. College of Chemistry and Environmental Science, Inner Mongolia Normal University, Hohhot 010022, Inner Mongolia, China
    2. Engineering Research Center of Water-Saving Agriculture, Inner Mongolia Normal University, Hohhot 010022, Inner Mongolia, China
    3. Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Environmental Science Society, Hohhot 010022, Inner Mongolia, China
  • Received:2023-12-28 Revised:2024-01-24 Online:2024-10-25 Published:2024-11-27
  • Contact: LI Xing E-mail:erjin263043@163.com;lixingmm81@imnu.edu.cn

Abstract:

The variation in lake area is a key indicator of climate change and human activities within a basin. The spatiotemporal dynamics of lake area are essential for assessing changes in the lake’s ecological environment and their impacts. Utilizing the Landsat series of satellite images, this study applies the normalized difference water index (NDWI), the modified normalized difference water index (MNDWI), the interspectral relationship method, and the maximum likelihood supervised classification technique to extract the area of Wuliangsuhai Lake, Inner Mongolia, China. A comparative analysis was conducted to evaluate the performance of these four water body indices. The supervised classification method, which demonstrated the highest precision, was employed to extract the area of Wuliangsuhai Lake from 1986 to 2021, and the lake’s change trend was analyzed. Additionally, the trends and abrupt changes in temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, and potential evapotranspiration in the Wuliangsuhai Lake were analyzed using univariate linear regression, the M-K trend test, and the mutation test. The results indicate that the lake surface area of Wuliangsuhai Lake expanded from 316.19 km2 to 332.34 km2, reflecting an increase of 5.11%. Temperature and precipitation showed a significant upward trend, while relative humidity and potential evapotranspiration also increased, indicating overall warming in the basin. From 2002 to 2021, the sown area of crops demonstrated a strong positive correlation with lake area, with GDP contributing 76.83%, population contributing 18.37%, and potential evapotranspiration contributing 7.73% to the overall change.

Key words: lake area, water index, climate change, human activities, drivers