Arid Zone Research ›› 2024, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (7): 1131-1139.doi: 10.13866/j.azr.2024.07.05

• Land and Water Resources • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Correlations between soil water content, salinity, and fractional vegetation cover in the Ugan-Kuqa River Delta Oasis of Xinjiang ascertained based on remote sensing images

ZHENG Liuna(), JIANG Hongnan(), SUN Mengting   

  1. College of Geography and Remote Sensing Sciences, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830017, Xinjiang, China
  • Received:2023-08-28 Revised:2024-03-28 Online:2024-07-15 Published:2024-08-01

Abstract:

Based on the soil samples and remote sensing image data, this paper takes the Ugan-Kuqa River Delta Oasis, a typical arid region in Xinjiang, as the study area. FVC was calculated utilizing the pixel dichotomous model. Inverse distance weight interpolation and statistical analysis methods such as correlation and mediating effect analyses were used to study the impact of soil water content and salinity at depths of 0-50 cm on the spatial changes of FVC. This paper can provide a theoretical basis for optimizing resource allocation and formulating ecological restoration measures in arid areas. The results were: (1) FVC showed a west-east decreasing trend in space, directly proportional to the water content and inversely with the salinity. (2) The water content of each soil layer gradually enhanced from top to bottom, and the salinity revealed an inverse trend, with≥moderate variability in water content and salinity at different depths. (3) The soil water content at the 10-20 cm layer alone exhibited a mediating effect between FVC and the water content of the 0-10 cm surface layer. The salinity in the deeper layers of 10-20, 10-30, and 30-50 cm exhibits a mediating effect between FVC and salinity in the 0-10 cm layer. In other words, the salinity in deeper soil layers influenced FVC by affecting the salinity of the surface soil. (4) The salinity in the 0-10 cm layer most significantly impacted the FVC, influencing>47.90% of the spatial variability of FVC. Additionally, the impact of salinity at various soil depths on FVC surpasses that of water content.

Key words: Ugan-Kuqa River Delta Oasis, soil water content, soil salinity, fractional vegetation cover, correlation analysis