External Groundwater Alleviates the Degradation of Closed Lakes in Semi-Arid Regions of China

Abstract

There are a large number of lakes with beaded distribution in the semi-arid areas of the Inner Mongolian Plateau, and some of them have degraded or even disappeared during the past three decades. We studied the reasons of the disappearance of these lakes by determining the way of replenishment of these lakes and the impact of the natural-social environment of the basin, with the aim of saving these gradually disappearing lakes. Based on remote sensing image and hydrological analysis, this paper studied the recharge of Daihai Lake and Huangqihai Lake. The deep learning method was used to establish the time-series of lake evolution. The same method was combined with the innovative woodland and farmland extraction method to set up the time-series of ground classification composition in the basins. Using relevant survey data, combined with soil water infiltration test, water chemical, and isotopic signature analysis of various water bodies, we found that the Daihai Lake area is the largest in dry season and the smallest in rainy season and the other lake is not satisfied with this phenomenon. In addition, we calculated the specific recharge and consumption of the study basin. These experiments indicated that the exogenous groundwater is recharged directly through the faults at the bottom of Daihai Lake, while the exogenous groundwater is recharged in Huangqihai Lake through rivers indirectly. Large-scale exploitation of groundwater for agricultural irrigation and industrial production is the main cause of lake degradation. Reducing the extraction of groundwater for agricultural irrigation is an important measure to restore lake ecology.

Coupling reconstruction of atmospheric hydrological profile and dry-up risk prediction in a typical lake basin in arid area of China

“…1 , produced by ArcGIS10.6, https://desktop.arcgis.com/de/arcmap/10.6/ , the administrative boundary data comes from the Resource and Environmental Science and Data Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the land use data comes from the MODIS MOD12Q1 product). Daihai Basin is surrounded by mountains, among which the highest peak Manhan Mountain (Yinshan branch) is 2305 m and the lowest is 1218 m located at Daihai Lake 20 . Daihai Basin belongs to temperate continental climate, with long cold winter and short high heat summer.…”

Water-Body Segmentation for SAR Images: Past, Current, and Future

“…Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) can sense targets all day/night [1], and its active microwave can penetrate clouds and fog. In extreme weather conditions, recourse to SAR is almost compulsory [2,3]. Meanwhile, the different scattering characteristics of water and land make SAR capable of providing excellent data resources [4][5][6][7] for river and lake segmentation [8,9], coastline extraction [10], river extraction [11], and other similar tasks [12].…”

Hydrogeochemical and isotopic evidences of unique groundwater recharge patterns in the Mongolian Plateau

“…Hulun Lake is the largest freshwater lake in the Inner Mongolia Plateau. Owing to its rich natural resources, the lake plays a crucial role in the surrounding environment (Chen et al, 2019). Previous studies indicate that Hulun Lake, a tectonic lake surrounded by major faults, is recharged by groundwater through faults in addition to local precipitation and rivers (Han, 2018; Wang et al, 2012).…”