A contrarian growth: The spatiotemporal dynamics of open-surface water bodies on the northern slope of Kunlun Mountains

Abstract

Identifying and monitoring open-surface water bodies are significant for understanding regional water resource distribution and evolving trends. This understanding carries profound value for comprehensively assessing the effects of climate change and human social activities on water resources and maintaining water security. This study pioneers’ improvements in surface water detection rules with the central aim of constructing a Method with Enhanced Impurity Control, specifically tailored for complex environmental scenarios (OA = 98.97 % ± 0.06). This is achieved by incorporating intricate exponential constraints and targeted data masks. Our analysis is grounded in the examination of 21,709 preprocessed high-quality images, covering the period from 1990 to 2021 across the northern slope of the Kunlun Mountains. Through this comprehensive study, we have gleaned insightful results regarding the spatiotemporal dynamics of open-surface water bodies. In the past 32 years, the surface water body area on the northern slope of the Kunlun Mountains has exhibited a significantly increasing trend. Specifically, the size of permanent water bodies expanded by 71.03 % (with a 95 % confidence interval: ± 27.73 %), while the area of seasonal water bodies grew by a substantial 170.63 % (with a 95 % confidence interval: ± 17.50 %). Open-surface water bodies display discernible spatiotemporal differences. Stable and continuous permanent water bodies are predominantly in mountainous areas, whereas seasonal water bodies with pronounced fluctuations are chiefly found in desert-oasis areas. Climate change is the dominant factor that affects the changes of water bodies on the surface of mountain regions, while human social activities also have a significant impact on desert-oasis areas. The improved methodology adopted in this study offers a robust and scalable framework that can be tailored for studying changes in open-surface water bodies in intricate environments. We performed a comprehensive analysis of the changes and drivers of open-surface water bodies on the north side of the Kunlun Mountains over time and space. This work is aimed at providing data support for scientifically appraising the development potential of water resources in Southern Xinjiang and addressing the disparity between water resource supply and demand.