Area, lake-level and volume variations of typical lakes on the Tibetan Plateau and their response to climate change, 1972–2019

Geo-spatial Information Science

Yingkui Li¹  Haidong Li²  Ju Zhang³  Jiayuan Li³  Qingwu Hu³ 

[1] Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, US;Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Environmental Protection, Nanjing, Chin;School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Chin;

关键词: Tibetan Plateau;    lake variations;    Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data;    Landsat data;    climate change;   

DOI  :  10.1080/10095020.2021.1940318

来源: Taylor & Francis

【 摘 要 】

Most lakes have undergone significant changes on the Tibetan Plateau in recent decades, affecting water resources on the Tibetan Plateau and its surrounding areas. In this paper, we investigated the variations of 25 lakes in five sub-regions on the Tibetan Plateau from 1972 to 2019 based on SRTM DEM data and Landsat imagery. We used a method to derive lake-levels based on DEM and lake boundaries delineated from Landsat imagery, and then calculated the changes in lake area, level, and volume in 1972 to 2019. We also analyzed the potential impacts of temperature, precipitation, glacial and permafrost melting in lake changes during this period. The results show that the lakes tended to shrink until 2010 in southern and western plateau, after which they began to expand gradually but the overall trend is still shrinking. Limited meltwater from glaciers and permafrost and low precipitation are the main reasons for their shrinkage. The lakes in the central plateau, northwest plateau and northeast plateau tend to expand overall. The reason for the expansion of the lakes is not only precipitation but also the melting of glaciers and permafrost. Overall, the lake changes have gone through 3 phases, namely a slight decrease during 1972–2000, a rapid increase during 2000–2010, and a slowdown in the last decade (2010–2019). Multiple factors such as temperature, precipitation, the state of glaciers and permafrost have contributed to the changes in the lake.

【 授权许可】

CC BY