Impacts of climate change and evapotranspiration on shrinkage of Aral Sea.

The massive desiccation of the Aral Sea, the fourth largest lake in the world, has led to severe ecological problems, expansion of cropland was thought to be the main factor driving that shrinkage. But this study performed a long-term land cover and use change assessment for Aral Sea Basin (ASB) to show that the cropland has stopped expanding in 2000, of which the cropland in the ASB plain area has decreased significantly (-140 km/year) from 2001 to 2019. By contrast, this study finds the hydrological cycle in the ASB has intensified through a spatial and temporal scale approach based on Earth observation.

Monitoring and predicting land use/cover changes in the Aksu-Tarim River Basin, Xinjiang-China (1990-2030).

Land use/cover (LCLU) is considered as one of the most serious environmental challenges that threatens developed and less developed countries. LCLU changes' monitoring using the integration of remote sensing (RS) and geographical information systems (GIS) and their predicting using an artificial neural network (ANN) in the western part of the Tarim River Basin (Aksu), north-western Xinjiang-China, from 1990 to 2030 have been investigated first time through satellite imageries available. The imageries of 1990, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 were downloaded from GLCF and USGS websites.

Disentangling the relative impacts of climate change and human activities on arid and semiarid grasslands in Central Asia during 1982-2015.

In recent decades, climate change and human activities have severely affected grasslands in Central Asia. Grassland regulation and sustainability in this region require an accurate assessment of the effects of these two factors on grasslands. Based on the abrupt change analysis, linear regression analysis and net primary productivity (NPP), the spatiotemporal patterns of grassland ecosystems in Central Asia during 1982-2015 were studied.