%0 Journal Article %A YU Shuchen %A WANG Lunche %A XIA Weiping %A YU Deqing %A LI Chang'an %A HE Qiuhua %T Spatio-temporal evolution of riparian lakes in Dongting Lake area since the late Qing Dynasty %D 2020 %R 10.11821/dlxb202011006 %J Acta Geographica Sinica %P 2346-2361 %V 75 %N 11 %X

In order to analyze the spatio-temporal evolutions of Dongting Lake in modern times, this paper investigated the temporal changes of the riparian lake areas in Dongting Lake area since the late Qing Dynasty using various historical maps and remote sensing data since 1896 AD (the 22nd year during the Emperor Guangxu's reign in the Qing Dynasty). The remote sensing data interpretation, statistical analysis and historical comparison methods were used to test the accuracy of the remote sensing based lake areas with the observation data from the Ministry of Water Resources of China. The results showed that the overall error rate was only 0.62%, and after 1896, the riparian lake areas in Dongting Lake decreased from 5126.37 km2 to 2702.74 km2, with an annual atrophy rate of 48.19%. The 53 years before the founding of the People's Republic of China was a period of obvious lake shrinkage, with an annual average decrease of 15.66 km2. The 1950s was a period of rapid atrophy (134.33 km2 per year), and the 1960-1970s was a period of rapid shrinkage, with an annual rate of 21.66 km2. The riparian lake areas in Dongting Lake only reduced by 5.10 km2 since the 1980s. In terms of the areas for each lake, the East Dongting Lake was the lake with the largest shrinkage (922.60 km2) since 1935, followed by the Muping Lake (a decrease of 588.05 km2), and the South Dongting Lake (decrease of 448.37 km2). The change in areas of Qili Lake was relatively small in recent decades. The areas of Dongting Lake increased by 10.50 km2 during 1998-2002 due to the implementation of returning farmland to lake. In general, the evolution of riparian lakes in Dongting Lake area since the late Qing Dynasty was characterized by the closure and separation of Datong Lake, the replacement of the embankments for the South Dongting Lake, the local remains of the West Dongting Lake, the three-sided enclosure of East Dongting Lake and the limited operation of returning farmland to lake after the catastrophic flood in 1998. This study may provide data and technical support for the ecological restoration and environmental protection strategy of the Yangtze River Basin.

%U https://www.geog.com.cn/EN/10.11821/dlxb202011006