The oasis evolution under human activities of arid Xinjiang in China

Chunxian Han

doi:10.1117/12.836460

9 October 2009 The oasis evolution under human activities of arid Xinjiang in China

Chunxian Han

Proceedings Volume 7471, Second International Conference on Earth Observation for Global Changes; 74710P (2009) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.836460
Event: Second International Conference on Earth Observation for Global Changes, 2009, Chengdu, China

Abstract

The water resources utilization in the arid area of northeastern Tianshan Mountain in Xinjiang attracts a lot of attention from research community and government. Although some problems such as the change of the water resource and suitable utility of water have been addressed before, however, less concern has been on the long-time human activity effects, so the ecological and environment processes of the Oasis areas need to be paid more attention. This research took Qitai oasis as the study area, located in northeastern Tianshan Mountain, to analyze the development and spatial evolution of the artificial oasis since 18th century using historical literature, remote sensing technology and field-surveyed data. Then the changes of natural oasis grass land and the artificial oasis were identified for studying the environmental evolution. The results show that the artificial oasis increased due to the improvement of irrigating technology. Qitai oasis has improved towards optimized pattern from the 18th century to 2006. Cultivated land increased slowly from 18 century to 1970s because irrigation technology had not enough change to provide more irrigation. As a result, when cultivated land enlarged fast influenced by policy from the end of 1950s to 1970s, environmental burden increased due to the lack of sufficient water. After 1970s, cultivated land increased heavily with an increasing productivity due to the introduction of new irrigating trenches and the use of groundwater pumping facilities. In the meanwhile, the eco-environment of Bahudi grass land which is typical natural oasis seemed much improved with an increase from 1997 to 2006. Salinized land turned heavily into grassland from 1973-2006 and thus the low grassland changed towards middle and high covered grassland gradually.

Citation Download Citation

Chunxian Han "The oasis evolution under human activities of arid Xinjiang in China", Proc. SPIE 7471, Second International Conference on Earth Observation for Global Changes, 74710P (9 October 2009); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.836460

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