Abstract
Inner Mongolia, located in northern China and bordered by Mongolia and Russia, has numerous lakes. Constrained by water scarcity, precious lakes play key roles in degraded grassland ecosystems and the social and economic development of Inner Mongolia. This study combines 1815 Landsat image interpretations and ground-based surveys to track the area changes in 573 lakes in Inner Mongolia during the period 1987–2019. Our results demonstrate that the number of dried-up lakes increased by 0.87 per year, the number of lakes with water areas below 0.1 km2 increased by 1.02 per year, and the number of lakes with water areas between 0.1 and 1 km2 increased by 0.39 per year. The number of lakes with areas larger than 1 km2 shows a decreased or fluctuating trend. The lake area in Inner Mongolia increased at a rate of 7.04 km2/year from 1987 to 1998 but then shows an overall decreasing trend at a rate of 0.71 km2/year over the next 20 years. The period from 1999 to 2010 was the most serious period of lake shrinkage in Inner Mongolia in the past 30 years, with a shrinkage rate of 33.99 km2/year. The climate changes from wet to dry and from dry to wet are the main reasons for the breakpoint occurrence of the lake area time series in the 2000s and 2010s, respectively. The response of lake area changes to climate-related factors has significant regional differences. In addition, intensification of human activities, such as the rapid development of livestock and coal mining, is also the main driver of lake change. The multiple regression model shows that the contribution of climate-related variables and human activity–related variables to the change in lake area over the 1987–2019 time period was about 40% and 60%, respectively.
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The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Funding
This research was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China (grant number 2020BS04001), Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Science and Technology Achievement Transformation Project (grant number 2021CG0012), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 41807215).
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Yanfei Zhang conceived and designed the analysis, performed the calculations, and wrote the manuscript with input from all authors. Zilong Liao contributed to the conception and methodology of this study. Xiaomin Xu provided critical feedback. Wentao Liang helped shape the research, analysis, and manuscript. Zhenhua Han helped to collect the data. Gang Ji performed formal analysis. Rui Jiao aided in interpreting the results and worked on the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Zhang, Y., Liao, Z., Xu, X. et al. Investigation of lake shrinkage attributed to climate change over the past 33 years in Inner Mongolia, China. Climatic Change 176, 10 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03487-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03487-3