Arid Zone Research ›› 2021, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (6): 1514-1523.doi: 10.13866/j.azr.2021.06.03

• Water Resources and Utilization • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Temporal variation in the Barkol Lake area and its driving factors in 1995-2020

WANG Zhen1,2(),LI Junli1,3(),BAO Anming1,3,ZHANG Jiudan1,2,BAI Jie1,3   

  1. 1. State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, Xinjiang, China
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
    3. Key Laboratory of GIS & RS Application Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Urumqi 830011, Xinjiang, China
  • Received:2021-03-28 Revised:2021-07-17 Online:2021-11-15 Published:2021-11-29
  • Contact: Junli LI E-mail:wangzhen19@mails.ucas.ac.cn;lijl@ms.xjb.ac.cn

Abstract:

Barkol Lake is a closed inland lake in the eastern part of the Tianshan Mountains. Its evolutionary characteristics should be elucidated to develop lake protection and manage its ecological environment. In this study, 308 Landsat series and Sentinel 2 remote sensing images were used to extract the time series of the lake water surface from 1995 to 2020. Data from Barkol Meteorological Station were combined with the cultivated land area data extracted from remote sensing images to analyze the trend of changes in the lake under the influence of climate change and human activities through time series analysis, correlation analysis, Mann-Kendall trend analysis, and abrupt change test method. Results show that changes in the had two stages. In 1995-2006, the annual mean decreased from 57.33 km2 to 35.53 km2 at a decreasing rate of 1.98 km2·a-1, thereby shrinking by 35.79%. In 2006-2020, the annual mean increased from 35.53 km2 to 46.59 km2 at an increasing rate of 0.79 km2·a-1 and an expansion rate of 31.12%. The lake expanded and shrank mainly in the east and north of the lake. Statistical analysis on monthly changes in the lake area for many years revealed that the lake reached the maximum value of (73.09±21.01) km2 in May and the minimum value of (43.90±16.97) km2 in November. The seasonal variation in the year when the lake water crossed the dam was higher than that in the year when it did not cross the dam. As for the influencing factors, in 1995-2006, precipitation slightly changed. The shrinking of Barkol Lake was mainly attributed to the increase in evaporation and agricultural water use. After 2006, Barkol Kazakh Autonomous County introduced various wetland protection measures, and the expansion trend of the cultivated land area was controlled. Consequently, the significant increase in precipitation and the decrease in evaporation became the main reasons for the expansion of the lake area.

Key words: Barkol Lake, lake area change, remote sensing, influencing factors, Xinjiang