Lake Khuvsgul

Abstract

AbstractLake Khuvsgul, a tectonic lake, plays a vital role in surface water resources of northern Mongolia and Eurasia. The lake stores three quarter (~384 km3) of the total volume of freshwater resources in Mongolia, and it is a major headwater of Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia through Eg and Selenge rivers. The water resource of Lake Khuvsgul is the largest not only in Mongolia but also in Central Asia. Lake Khuvsgul responses to the present climate change with gradual hydrological fluctuations. The lake gained an area by 15.6 km2 between 1970 and 2010, and it lost by 24.6 km2 between 2010 and 2015. The area increase coincided with the rise in lake level and increase in precipitation, whereas the area decrease was consistent with the air temperature rise since 2010. The Lake Khuvsgul area during 1989–2015 had weak linear relationships with the annual average air temperature (R2 = 0.1431) and precipitation (R2 = 0.1059) recorded at the northern shore of the lake, and here the correlation analysis shows that the lake area had weak negative correlations with both air temperature (r = −0.378) and precipitation (r = −0.325). The lake area during 1970–2015 had weak linear relationships with the annual average air temperature (R2 = 0.1467) and precipitation (R2 = 0.1089) recorded at the southern shore of the lake, and here the correlation analysis shows that the lake area had a weak positive correlation with precipitation (r = 0.330) and a weak negative correlation with air temperature (r = −0.382).KeywordsLake KhuvsgulEg RiverSelenge RiverLake BaikalClimate changeNorthern Mongolia