Monitoring 40-Year Lake Area Changes of the Qaidam Basin, Tibetan Plateau, Using Landsat Time Series

Areal changes of high-altitude inland lakes on the Qaidam Basin (QB) of the Tibetan Plateau are reliable indicators of climate change and anthropogenic disturbance. Due to the physical difficulties to access, our knowledge of the spatial patterns and processes of climatic and human impacts on the Basin has been limited. Focusing on lake area changes, this study used long-term Landsat images to map the patterns of lakes and glaciers in 1977, 1990, 2000, and 2015, and to monitor the spatially explicit changes of lakes between 1977 and 2015. Results revealed that the total number of lakes (area > 0.5 km2) increased by 18, while their total area expanded by 29.8%, from 1761.5 ± 88.1 km2 to 2285.9 ± 91.4 km2. Meanwhile, glaciers have decreased in area by 259.16 km2 in the past four decades. The structural equation model (SEM) was applied to examine the integrative effects of natural and anthropogenic factors on lake area. Precipitation change exhibited the most significant influence on lake area in the QB from 1977 to 2000, while human activities also played an important role in the expansion of lakes in the QB in the period 2000–2015. In particular, extensive exploitation of salt lakes as mining resources resulted in severe changes in lake area and landscape. The continuously expanding salt lakes inundated the road infrastructure nearby, posing great threats to road safety. This study shed new light on the impacts of recent environmental changes and human interventions on lakes in the Qaidam Basin, which could assist policy-making for protecting the lakes and for strengthening the ecological improvement of this vast, arid basin.

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Changes in China’s lakes: Climate and human impacts

National Science Review ◽

10.1093/nsr/nwz103 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Shengli Tao ◽

Jingyun Fang ◽

Suhui Ma ◽

Qiong Cai ◽

Xinyu Xiong ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Population Distribution ◽

Driving Forces ◽

Human Impacts ◽

Critical Role ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Lake Area ◽

Landsat Images ◽

Climatic Control ◽

Economic Boom

Abstract Lakes have played a critical role in providing water and ecosystem services for people and other organisms in China for millennia. However, accelerating climate change and economic boom have resulted in unprecedented changes in these valuable lakes. Using Landsat images covering the entity of the country, we explored the changes in China’s lakes and the associated driving forces over the last 30 years (i.e., mid-1980s to 2015). We discovered that China’s lakes have changed with divergent regional trends: in the sparsely populated Tibetan Plateau, lakes are abundant, and the lake area has increased dramatically from 38,596 km2 to 46,831 km2 (i.e., increased by 8235 km2, or 21.3%), whereas in the densely populated northern and eastern regions, lakes are relatively scarce, and the lake area has decreased from 36,659 km2 to 33,657 km2 (i.e., decreased by 3002 km2, or 8.2%). In particular, severe lake decreases occurred in the Mongolia-Xinjiang Plateau and the Eastern Plain (–2151 km2). Statistical analyses indicated that climate was the most important factor controlling lake changes in the Tibetan Plateau, the Yun-Gui Plateau and the Northeast Plain. However, the strength of climatic control on lake changes was low in the Eastern Plain and the Mongolia-Xinjiang Plateau, where human activities, e.g., impoldering, irrigation, and mining, have caused serious impacts on lakes. Further lake changes will exacerbate regional imbalances between lake resources and population distribution and thus may increase the risk of water resource crises in China.

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Long-Term Lake Area Change and Its Relationship with Climate in the Endorheic Basins of the Tibetan Plateau

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13245125 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (24) ◽

pp. 5125

Author(s):

Junxiao Wang ◽

Mengyao Li ◽

Liuming Wang ◽

Jiangfeng She ◽

Liping Zhu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Large Scale ◽

Driving Forces ◽

Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Lake Area ◽

Climate Variables ◽

Landsat Images ◽

Area Change ◽

Local Climate

Lakes are sensitive indicators of climate change in the Tibetan Plateau (TP), which have shown high temporal and spatial variability in recent decades. The driving forces for the change are still not entirely clear. This study examined the area change of the lakes greater than 1 km2 in the endorheic basins of the Tibetan Plateau (EBTP) using Landsat images from 1990 to 2019, and analysed the relationships between lake area and local and large-scale climate variables at different geographic scales. The results show that lake area in the EBTP has increased significantly from 1990 to 2019 at a rate of 432.52 km2·year−1. In the past 30 years, lake area changes in the EBTP have mainly been affected by local climate variables such as precipitation and temperature. At a large scale, Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) has correlations with lake area in western sub-regions in the Inner Basin (IB). While Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) has a significant connection with lake area, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) does not. We also found that abnormal drought (rainfall) brought by the El Niño/La Niña events are significantly correlated with the lake area change in most sub-regions in the IB.

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A lake data set for the Tibetan Plateau from the 1960s, 2005, and 2014

Scientific Data ◽

10.1038/sdata.2016.39 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 53

Author(s):

Wei Wan ◽

Di Long ◽

Yang Hong ◽

Yingzhao Ma ◽

Yuan Yuan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Time Series ◽

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Yellow River ◽

Qaidam Basin ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Design Data ◽

Data Set ◽

River Ganges ◽

The 1960S

Abstract Long-term datasets of number and size of lakes over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are among the most critical components for better understanding the interactions among the cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere at regional and global scales. Due to the harsh environment and the scarcity of data over the TP, data accumulation and sharing become more valuable for scientists worldwide to make new discoveries in this region. This paper, for the first time, presents a comprehensive and freely available data set of lakes’ status (name, location, shape, area, perimeter, etc.) over the TP region dating back to the 1960s, including three time series, i.e., the 1960s, 2005, and 2014, derived from ground survey (the 1960s) or high-spatial-resolution satellite images from the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS) (2005) and China’s newly launched GaoFen-1 (GF-1, which means high-resolution images in Chinese) satellite (2014). The data set could provide scientists with useful information for revealing environmental changes and mechanisms over the TP region. Design Type(s) time series design • observation design • data integration objective Measurement Type(s) lake topography Technology Type(s) remote sensing Factor Type(s) Sample Characteristic(s) Tibetan Plateau • Qaidam Basin • Amu Darya • Brahmaputra River • River Ganges • Hexi District • Indus River • Mekong River • Salween River • Tarim Basin • Yangtze River • Yellow River • endorheic lake • exorheic lake Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data (ISA-Tab format)

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Lake area and volume variation in the endorheic basin of the Tibetan Plateau from 1989 to 2019

10.5194/essd-2021-331 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Liuming Wang ◽

Junxiao Wang ◽

Mengyao Li ◽

Liping Zhu ◽

Xingong Li

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Volume Change ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Landsat Imagery ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Lake Area ◽

Lake Volume ◽

Endorheic Basin ◽

Models Validation

Abstract. The Tibetan Plateau, known as "the third pole of the Earth", is a region susceptible to climate change. With little human disturbance, lake storage changes serve as a unique indicator of climate change, but comprehensive lake storage data are rare in the region, especially for the lakes with an area less than 10 km2 which are the most sensitive to environmental changes. In this paper, we completed a census of annual lake volume change for 976 lakes larger than 1 km2 in the endorheic basin of the Tibetan Plateau (EBTP) during 1989–2019 using Landsat imagery and digital terrain models. Validation and comparison with several existing studies indicate that our data are more reliable. Lake volume in the EBTP exhibited a net increase of 193.45 km3 during the time period with an increasing rate of 6.45 km3 year−1. In general, the larger the lake area, the greater the lake volume change, though there are some exceptions. Lakes with an area less than 10 km2 have more severe volume change whether decreasing or increasing. This research complements existing lake studies by providing a comprehensive and long-term lake volume change data for the region. The dataset is available on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5543615, Wang et al., 2021).

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Contrasting Evolution Patterns of Endorheic and Exorheic Lakes on the Central Tibetan Plateau and Climate Cause Analysis during 1988–2017

Water ◽

10.3390/w13141962 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (14) ◽

pp. 1962

Author(s):

Zhilong Zhao ◽

Yue Zhang ◽

Zengzeng Hu ◽

Xuanhua Nie

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Climatic Factors ◽

Global Climate ◽

Rapid Expansion ◽

Annual Precipitation ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Lake Area ◽

Climate Change Research ◽

Mean Temperature

The alpine lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are indicators of climate change. The assessment of lake dynamics on the TP is an important component of global climate change research. With a focus on lakes in the 33° N zone of the central TP, this study investigates the temporal evolution patterns of the lake areas of different types of lakes, i.e., non-glacier-fed endorheic lakes and non-glacier-fed exorheic lakes, during 1988–2017, and examines their relationship with changes in climatic factors. From 1988 to 2017, two endorheic lakes (Lake Yagenco and Lake Zhamcomaqiong) in the study area expanded significantly, i.e., by more than 50%. Over the same period, two exorheic lakes within the study area also exhibited spatio-temporal variability: Lake Gaeencuonama increased by 5.48%, and the change in Lake Zhamuco was not significant. The 2000s was a period of rapid expansion of both the closed lakes (endorheic lakes) and open lakes (exorheic lakes) in the study area. However, the endorheic lakes maintained the increase in lake area after the period of rapid expansion, while the exorheic lakes decreased after significant expansion. During 1988–2017, the annual mean temperature significantly increased at a rate of 0.04 °C/a, while the annual precipitation slightly increased at a rate of 2.23 mm/a. Furthermore, the annual precipitation significantly increased at a rate of 14.28 mm/a during 1995–2008. The results of this study demonstrate that the change in precipitation was responsible for the observed changes in the lake areas of the two exorheic lakes within the study area, while the changes in the lake areas of the two endorheic lakes were more sensitive to the annual mean temperature between 1988 and 2017. Given the importance of lakes to the TP, these are not trivial issues, and we now need accelerated research based on long-term and continuous remote sensing data.

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Paleolake salinity evolution in the Qaidam Basin (NE Tibetan Plateau) between ~42 and 29 Ma: Links to global cooling and Paratethys sea incursions

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-13526 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Chengcheng Ye ◽

Yibo Yang ◽

Xiaomin Fang ◽

Weilin Zhang ◽

Chunhui Song ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Middle Eocene ◽

Qaidam Basin ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Regional Climate Change ◽

Driving Mechanism ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Early Oligocene ◽

Global Cooling

<p>Global cooling, the early uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, and the retreat of the Paratethys are three main factors that regulate long-term climate change in the Asian interior during the Cenozoic. However, the debated elevation history of the Tibetan Plateau and the overlapping climate effects of the Tibetan Plateau uplift and Paratethys retreat makes it difficult to assess the driving mechanism on regional climate change in a particular period. Some recent progress suggests that precisely dated Paratethys transgression/regression cycles appear to have fluctuated over broad regions with low relief in the northern Tibetan Plateau in the middle Eocene&#8211;early Oligocene, when the global climate was characterized by generally continuous cooling followed by the rapid Eocene&#8211;Oligocene climate transition (EOT). Therefore, a middle Eocene&#8211;early Oligocene record from the Asian interior with unambiguous paleoclimatic implications offers an opportunity to distinguish between the climatic effects of the Paratethys retreat and those of global cooling.</p><p>Here, we present a complete paleolake salinity record from middle Eocene to early Miocene (~42-29 Ma) in the Qaidam Basin using detailed clay boron content and clay mineralogical investigations. Two independent paleosalimeters, equivalent boron and Couch&#8217;s salinity, collectively present a three-staged salinity evolution, from an oligohaline&#8211;mesohaline environment in the middle Eocene (42-~34 Ma) to a mesosaline environment in late Eocene-early Oligocene (~34-~29 Ma). This clay boron-derived salinity evolution is further supported by the published chloride-based and ostracod-based paleosalinity estimates in the Qaidam Basin. Our quantitative paleolake reconstruction between ~42 and 29 Ma in the Qaidam Basin resembles the hydroclimate change in the neighboring Xining Basin, of which both present good agreement with changes of marine benthic oxygen isotope compositions. We thus speculated that the secular trend of clay boron-derived paleolake salinity in ~42-29 Ma is primarily controlled by global cooling, which regulates regional climate change by influencing the evaporation capacity in the moisture source of Qaidam Basin. Superimposed on this trend, the Paratethys transgression/regression cycles served as an important factor regulating wet/dry fluctuations in the Asian interior between ~42 and ~34 Ma.</p>

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A lake-level chronology based on feldspar luminescence dating of beach ridges at Tangra Yum Co (Southern Tibet)

Quaternary Research ◽

10.1016/j.yqres.2015.03.002 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 83 (3) ◽

pp. 469-478 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Eike F. Rades ◽

Sumiko Tsukamoto ◽

Manfred Frechen ◽

Qiang Xu ◽

Lin Ding

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Lake Level ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Luminescence Dating ◽

Rapid Decline ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Southern Tibet ◽

Beach Ridges ◽

Slow Decline ◽

Fast Decline

Many lakes on the Tibetan Plateau exhibit strandplains with a series of beach ridges extending high above the current lake levels. These beach ridges mark former lake highstands and therefore dating their formation allows the reconstruction of lake-level histories and environmental changes. In this study, we establish a lake-level chronology of Tangra Yum Co (fifth largest lake on the Tibetan Plateau) based on luminescence dating of feldspar from 17 beach-ridge samples. The samples were collected from two strandplains southeast and north of the lake and range in elevation from the current shore to 140 m above the present lake. Using a modified post-infrared IRSL protocol at 170°C we successfully minimised the anomalous fading in the feldspar IRSL signal, and obtained reliable dating results. The luminescence ages indicate three different stages of lake-level decline during the Holocene: (1) a phase of rapid decline (~ 50 m) from ~ 6.4 to ~ 4.5 ka, (2) a period of slow decline between ~ 4.5 and ~ 2.0 ka (~ 20 m), and (3) a fast decline by 70 m between ~ 2 ka and today. Our findings suggest a link between a decrease in monsoonal activity and lake-level decline since the early Holocene.

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Microbial Diversity in the Glacial Ecosystem of Antarctic, Arctic, and Tibetan Plateau: Properties and Response to the Environmental Condition

Janapriya Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies ◽

10.3126/jjis.v9i1.35239 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 231-250

Author(s):

Birendra Prasad Sharma ◽

Subash Adhikari ◽

Ganesh Paudel ◽

Namita Paudel Adhikari

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Microbial Diversity ◽

Bacterial Communities ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Anthropogenic Activities ◽

Relevant Literature ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Polar Regions ◽

Cold Temperatures ◽

Bacterial Phyla

Microorganisms, as successive members of the food web, play a major role in biological processes. They are found in environments ranging from extremely hot to harsh cold temperatures. Thus, the study of bacterial communities in various ecosystems is of great concern around the world. The glacier is one of the parts of the cryosphere, which is the key component and sensitive indicator of climatic and environmental changes. A glacial ecosystem is a habitat for various microorganisms, i.e., autotrophic and heterotrophic. Different physicochemical parameters like temperature, pH, electrical conductivity, the input of nutrient concentration, precipitation, ions concentrations, etc. influence the microbial diversity in the glacial ecosystem for their metabolic processes. Successive studies of bacterial communities in the Himalayan glacial ecosystem are reliable proxies to know the relationships between microbial biodiversity and climate change since the Himalayan glaciers are free from anthropogenic activities. After the study of the relevant literature, it is clear that the researches. have been carried out in the Polar Regions, and the Tibetan plateau mainly focused on the glacial ecosystem. This review concluded that Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Cyanobacteria, Firmicutes, Verrucomicrobia, and Actinobacteria were the most dominant bacterial phyla via 16S rRNA clone libraries and Illumina MiSeq. Alter in landscapes, nutrient cycles, exposure of light, shifting on the concentration of different elements, glacier retreats were the major components for survival strength of dominant bacterial phyla. However, limited studies on the glacial ecosystem of the Himalayas have been published. Thus, the study of bacterial abundance, diversity, and community in the Himalayas will help plug this research gap.

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Atmospheric processes of persistent organic pollutants over a remote lake of the central Tibetan Plateau: Implications for regional cycling

10.5194/acp-2016-989 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Jiao Ren ◽

Xiaoping Wang ◽

Chuanfei Wang ◽

Ping Gong ◽

Tandong Yao

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Organic Pollutants ◽

Persistent Organic Pollutants ◽

Secondary Source ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Lake Area ◽

Nam Co ◽

Surface Exchange ◽

Atmospheric Processes ◽

Water Gas

Abstract. Atmospheric processes (air-surface exchange, and atmospheric deposition and degradation) are crucial for understanding the global cycling and fate of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). However, such assessment over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) remains uncertain. More than 50 % of the Chinese lakes are located on the TP, which exerts a remarkable influence on the regional water, energy, and chemical cycling. In this study, air and water samples were simultaneously collected in Nam Co, a large lake on the TP, to test whether the lake is a "secondary source" or "sink" of POPs. Lower concentrations of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were observed in the atmosphere and lake water of Nam Co, while the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were relatively higher. Results of fugacity ratios and chiral signatures both suggest that the lake acted as the net sink of atmospheric hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs), following their long-range transport driven by the Indian Monsoon. Different behaviors were observed in the PAHs, which primarily originated from local biomass burning. Acenaphthylene, acenaphthene, and fluorene showed volatilization from the lake to the atmosphere; while other PAHs were deposited into the lake due to the integrated deposition process (wet/dry and air-water gas deposition) and limited atmospheric degradation. As the dominant PAH compound, phenanthrene exhibited a seasonal reversal of air-water gas exchange, which was likely related to the melting of the lake ice in May. The annual input of HCHs from air to the entire lake area (2015 km2) was estimated as 1.9 kg year−1, while those estimated for PAHs can potentially reach up to 550 kg year−1. This study highlights the significance of PAH deposition on the regional carbon cycling in the oligotrophic lakes of the TP.

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