Climate change and sandy land development in Qinghai Lake Watershed, China |
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Authors: | Yongliang SUN Xiaoyan LI Lianyou LIU Heye XU Dengshan ZHANG |
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Institution: | (1) State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China;(2) Institute of Land Resources, College of Resources Science and Technology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China |
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Abstract: | The Qinghai Lake Watershed, containing the largest saline lake in northwest of China, has suffered from severe sandy land
development in recent years. This paper analyzes its daily precipitation, temperature, and wind from 1958 to 2001, and the
spatial and temporal distributions of sandy land through the interpretation of remote sensing images covering four years (1977,
1987, 2000, and 2004). Results showed that since the middle of the 1960s, the daily precipitation (P) of 0<P⩽5 mm decreased, while the P>20 mm increased significantly (S<0.05) in their annual total amounts and days. The maximum daily precipitation also increased significantly. Both the maximum
dry spell and the total dry spell of more than ten days had a significant upward trend. Since the beginning of the 1960s,
all the extremely high, extremely low and mean temperatures increased significantly (S<0.01), at a rate of 0.1°C/10a, 0.2°C/10a, and 0.2°C/10a, respectively. The days with extremely high temperature had a significant
upward trend, while the days with extremely low temperature had a significant downward trend. The Qinghai Lake was significantly
shrinking (S<0.01) and provided abundant sediments for Aeolian erosion. The NNW wind prevailed in the watershed, and the largest scale
wind was from the west and concentrated on the dry months. As a result, the sandy land was mainly born on the east bank of
Qinghai Lake. The total sandy land area in the watershed had grown from 587.4 km2, 660.7 km2, 697.6 km2 to 805.8 km2, accordingly, its area percentage growing from 2.0%, 2.2%, 2.4% to 2.7%, respectively. |
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Keywords: | climate change sandy land Qinghai Lake Watershed |
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