Changes of major lakes in Central Asia over the past 30 years revealed by remote sensing technology

Abstract

In the context of global warming,the detection of the changes of the major lakes in Central Asia not only has great significance for the water management and its sustainable development,but also provides the basis for the further research on the response of inland lake changes to climate change and human activities. The authors first used Landsat images to acquire information of the lake area changes in the past 30 years,then employed Radar altimeter data to extract water levels of the lakes during 1992 to 2012,and finally analyzed factors responsible for lake changes. The results indicated that the area of lakes had decreased during 1978 to 2010 except for the Sarygamysh Lake,and the change extents of different types of lakes were different. The lake level changes had different patterns due to the difference in basins and lake types. Alpine lakes were influenced by climate,whereas the open lakes were affected by human activities significantly.