Scientists Made Progress in Land Use Change and Ecological Effects of Inland Rivers in Arid Zones

Land use/cover change has important implications for agriculture, industry, transportation, and housing, and has become a hot issue in global change. The simulation and analysis of the future spatial and temporal pattern of land use in the Tarim River Basin, and the investigation of the relationship between land development and ecological environment, will help to promote the social, economic and environmental progress of the region.

Based on the evolution of land use/cover change patterns in the Tarim River Basin over the past 30 years. Researchers from Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, explored the contribution of current and future transformations between different land types to the ecology.

Results of the study show that grassland and unused land are currently the main land types in the Tarim River Basin. The main characteristics of land use changes in the basin are the continuous expansion of arable land and the decrease of unused land, during which the area of arable land increased by 56.13 %, while the area of unused land decreased by 2.64 %. The main features are the transformation of grassland into cropland, construction land and forest land, and the transformation of unused land into cropland, grassland and construction land by continuous development and utilization. Since 1990, there has been a general trend of improvement in the ecological environment within the Tarim River Basin, and it was significant during the period 1990-2010. The conversion of unused land to grassland and cropland, respectively, was dominant during the period, with 69.64 % contribution from the conversion of unused land to grassland, while the conversion of grassland to cropland and construction land and the conversion of water bodies to unused land led to ecological degradation, with 73.80 % contribution from grassland to cropland dominating.

The related results were published in Remote Sensing, entitled “Ecological Impacts of Land Use Change in the Arid Tarim River Basin of China” and “Land Use Dynamic Changes in an Arid Inland River Basin Based on Multi-Scenario Simulation”.

Article link: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/14/8/1894/htm 

                    https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/14/12/2797/htm 

Fig. 1 Schematic Diagram of the Model Process and Land Structure Changes

Fig. 2 Ecological changes in the Tarim River Basin