Oasis land-use change and its effects on the eco-environment in Yanqi Basin, Xinjiang, China

Abstract

Satellite data and the published coefficients about the world's and China's ecosystem were used to analyze the effects of land-use changes on the ecosystem service in the Yanqi Basin. Both economic developments and arid, fragile ecosystems have strongly affected the land use. A sensitivity analysis determined the effect of manipulating the coefficients on the estimated values. Results indicated that (1) the total value of ecosystem services in the Yanqi Basin were 9,374.66, 10,450.52, 9,964.20, and 9,8707.77 million Yuan in 1990, 2000, 2005, and 2011, respectively. The net increase in ecosystem service values were about 496.11 million Yuan within 1990-2011; (2) The aggregated ecosystem service values of water body, wetlands, grasslands, and croplands were about 99.25 % of the total value; (3) Waste treatment and soil formation were the top two ecological functions with high service values and contributing about 61.70 % of the total service values; and (4) Ecosystem service values estimated in this study were inelastic with respect to the value coefficients; therefore, the estimation was robust in spite of uncertainties on the value coefficients. A reasonable land-use plan should be based on rigorous environmental impact analyses for maintaining stability and sustainable development of the Yanqi Basin.

Heavy metal contamination, sources, and pollution assessment of surface water in the Tianshan Mountains of China

“…The over-limit ratio of heavy metals (%) (n=55) Comprehensive pollution index (WQI) (n=55) (Li et al 2009;Wang et al 2010;Fu et al 2012;Zhang et al 2013a, b;Mamat et al 2014). By combining the economic development with the background measured from the three parts of the Tianshan Mountains, it was learned there were more rapid economic progress and higher quality of the economy in the middle Urumqi-Akesu and eastern Balikun-Yiwu sections than the western ZhaosuTekesi section (Wang et al 2010;Zhang et al 2011;Mamat et al 2014).…”

“…By combining the economic development with the background measured from the three parts of the Tianshan Mountains, it was learned there were more rapid economic progress and higher quality of the economy in the middle Urumqi-Akesu and eastern Balikun-Yiwu sections than the western ZhaosuTekesi section (Wang et al 2010;Zhang et al 2011;Mamat et al 2014). Industries, such as coal, silicon, lead-zinc mining, and other activities have gradually increased in the eastern Tianshan Mountains and central area.…”

“…In the Tianshan Mountains, because of the regional differences and modes of economic development, the pollution status of heavy metals in the surface water of different regions was different (Sun 2010;Zhang et al 2013b;Mamat et al 2014). For example, the concentrations of Pb, Hg, Cu, and Zn were higher in the eastern and middle Tianshan Mountains than the western Tianshan Mountains, most likely because of the rapid economic development and the policy of "industries first development" in these regions (Wang et al 2010;Mamat et al 2014). The increased intensity of human activity in these regions eventually negatively impacted the environment.…”

“…The Tianshan Mountains divide the Xinjiang desert into southern and northern parts, significantly increase the vertical zones in Xinjiang, and are the main impact factor on natural internal regional differentiation for the desert, basin, and plain Shi et al 2003a, b;Charreau et al 2005;Wang et al 2005;Wang and Zhou 2008). Currently, due to the rapid economic development of the Tianshan regions, human activity has blatantly influenced and caused environmental changes, including increasing heavy metal concentrations and reducing surface water resources Ye et al 2005;Li et al 2009;Wang et al 2011;Mamat et al 2014). But the researches of heavy metal contents of the environment including water, soil, and plant were still lacking.…”

Spatio-temporal changes in oases in the Heihe River Basin of China: 1963–2013

“…Finally, temporal and spatial changes in cropland in the arid and semi-arid region of northwest China from 1980 to 2010 have been analyzed, and the major drivers have been discussed (Zuo et al 2014). However, the previous studies focused on the evolution of oases over a short period of time or with a coarse time resolution (Luo et al 2003;Feng et al 2014;Mamat et al 2014), or they used remote sensing data with a coarse resolution Jin et al 2010;Yang et al 2014), which causes significant uncertainty in the extraction of oasis data. Therefore, research on the evolution of oases with smaller time intervals and fine spatial resolution is necessary.…”