New observational and experimental evidence for the recharge mechanism of the lake group in the Alxa Desert, north-central China

Dong, Chunyu; Wang, Nai’ang; Chen, Jiansheng; Li, Zhuolun; Chen, Hongbao; Chen, Li; Ma, Ning

doi:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2015.07.008

Cited by 48 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The lakes are recharged by groundwater, not surface runoff, and due to the extremely low precipitation and high potential evaporation rates (Ma et al, 2014), the lakes have variable concentrations of TDS (Wu et al, 2014;Dong et al, 2016). however, attributed to groundwater reductions in the drainage areas, the number of lakes in the region had fallen to 68 in 2006.…”

Section: Study Sitementioning

confidence: 99%

Total organic carbon and its environmental significance for the surface sediments in groundwater recharged lakes from the Badain Jaran Desert, northwest China

Dong

Chen

et al. 2017

J Limnol

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Total organic carbon (ToC) content in lake sediments is typically used for the reconstruction of paleoenvironments. it remains uncertain, however, whether these sediment variables in lakes supplied by groundwater in the hinterland of the Badain Jaran Desert are applicable. Moreover, it is still uncertain whether the ToC content in these lakes can be used as a proxy to identify past climatic change and environmental evolution studies. in this study, the spatial distributions of the ToC contents and C/n ratios were analyzed for 109 surface sediment samples collected from five lakes without runoff recharge. The results revealed that the ToC content of the lake surface sediments was extremely low (0.03% -1.01%) and consisted of both allochthonous organic matter carried by wind, as well as autochthonous organic matter generated in the lakes. Within a lake, spatial differences in the amount of ToC found in surface sediments may be caused by several processes including bathymetry topography and wind-induced wave activity. in addition, wind-induced wave activity produces a higher ToC content, which is more pronounced in larger lakes (>0.21 km 2 ) with longer fetches. By contrast, in smaller lakes, organic matter accumulates in the deeper waters, but can be affected by many factors. it is therefore necessary to consider lake area when applying the ToC content of lake sediments for the reconstruction of a paleolake evolution. Furthermore, because the ToC content of lake sediments in hyper-arid regions is extremely low, and the organic matter may have multiple and varied sources, a single proxy (ToC) cannot be used to reconstruct lake evolution.

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Section: Study Sitementioning

confidence: 99%

Total organic carbon and its environmental significance for the surface sediments in groundwater recharged lakes from the Badain Jaran Desert, northwest China

Dong

Chen

et al. 2017

J Limnol

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“…The annual precipitation in the hinterland of the Badain Jaran Desert is ~100 mm (Ma et al ., ), whereas the mean annual evaporation rate from water surfaces is over 1000 mm/yr (Yang et al ., ; Li et al ., ). No surface flow is observed because of the high ratio between evaporation and precipitation rates (Ma et al ., ; Dong et al ., ). Mean wind speed increases significantly from 3.7 m/s in the south to 4.6 m/s in the north, with the strongest winds occurring in spring (Hu et al ., ).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 97%

“…These lakes in the hinterland are recharged by groundwater but not by surface runoff, due to the extremely low precipitation and high potential evaporation (Ma et al ., ). Although there is an ongoing debate regarding the origin of this groundwater (Chen et al ., ; Yang et al ., ), deep phreatic water is likely the main replenishment source but not local precipitation (Dong et al ., ), resulting in lakes having variable amounts of total dissolved solids (TDS) (Wu et al ., ). Lakes are usually less than 1 km 2 , and the largest lake is Buerde Lake with an area of 2.32 km 2 (Wang et al ., ).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

The paleoenvironmental significance of spatial distributions of grain size in groundwater‐recharged lakes: A case study in the hinterland of the Badain Jaran Desert, northwest China

Wei

Dong

et al. 2017

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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For lakes in desert hinterlands that are not recharged by river runoff, sediment input solely comes from wind transport. While the processes of sediment transport and deposition in these lakes differ significantly from those with river discharge, the spatial distribution of sediment grain size in these groundwater‐recharged lakes remains largely unknown. Moreover, whether the grain size distribution in these lake sediments can be used as a proxy in the study of past climatic change and environmental evolution studies is unclear. In this study, five lakes with a range of surface areas that had no runoff recharge were selected from the hinterland of the Badain Jaran Desert of north‐western China, and a total of 108 samples of lake surface sediments were collected to examine the spatial distribution of grain size. Moreover, an end‐member‐modeling algorithm was used to calculate end members from all grain size measurements. Our results showed that both the median and mean grain sizes in the lake sediments decreased from the nearshore to the offshore, deep‐water zone. However, the lowest median and mean grain sizes were not found in the center of the lakes, in contrast to lakes recharged by surface runoff. The median grain size of sediment in the lake center was negatively correlated with lake level, and thus could help reveal lake evolution at low resolutions. Moreover, EM1 and EM2 were interpreted as wind transported sediment, and sediment perturbed by lake waves after wind transport, respectively. The modal grain size of EM1 varied slightly between lakes, while changes in the modal grain size of EM2 were related to lake area. Given the positive relationship found between EM2 content and lake level, changes in the EM2 content (%) can serve as a rough indicator of lake level fluctuations at low temporal resolutions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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“…It is widely accepted that the groundwater has been recharging the hundreds of permanent lakes in the BJD under the hyper-arid environment, which are increasing the attraction for tourists [45,[96][97][98][99]. Although the total area of the lake region is small (approximately 20 km 2 ) compared with the whole study region, the groundwater resources underneath the desert are considered to be rich [100].…”

Section: The Impact Of the Increasing Tourism On Desert Lakesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Loss Due to Increasing Planted Vegetation over the Badain Jaran Desert, China

et al. 2018

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Abstract:Water resources play a vital role in ecosystem stability, human survival, and social development in drylands. Human activities, such as afforestation and irrigation, have had a large impact on the water cycle and vegetation in drylands over recent years. The Badain Jaran Desert (BJD) is one of the driest regions in China with increasing human activities, yet the connection between human management and the ecohydrology of this area remains largely unclear. In this study, we firstly investigated the ecohydrological dynamics and their relationship across different spatial scales over the BJD, using multi-source observational data from 2001 to 2014, including: total water storage anomaly (TWSA) from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), lake extent from Landsat, and precipitation from in situ meteorological stations. We further studied the response of the local hydrological conditions to large scale vegetation and climatic dynamics, also conducting a change analysis of water levels over four selected lakes within the BJD region from 2011. To normalize the effect of inter-annual variations of precipitation on vegetation, we also employed a relationship between annual average NDVI and annual precipitation, or modified rain-use efficiency, termed the RUE mo . A focus of this study is to understand the impact of the increasing planted vegetation on local ecohydrological systems over the BJD region. Results showed that vegetation increases were largely found to be confined to the areas intensely influenced by human activities, such as croplands and urban areas. With precipitation patterns remaining stable during the study period, there was a significant increasing trend in vegetation greenness per unit of rainfall, or RUE mo over the BJD, while at the same time, total water storage as measured by satellites has been continually decreasing since 2003. This suggested that the increased trend in vegetation and apparent increase in RUE mo can be attributed to the extraction of ground water for human-planted irrigated vegetation. In the hinterland of the BJD, we identified human-planted vegetation around the lakes using MODIS observations and field investigations. Four lake basins were chosen to validate the relationship between lake levels and planted vegetation. Our results indicated that increasing human-planted vegetation significantly increased the water loss over the BJD region. This study highlights the value of combining observational data from space-borne sensors and ground instruments to monitor the ecohydrological dynamics and the impact of human activities on water resources and ecosystems over the drylands.

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New observational and experimental evidence for the recharge mechanism of the lake group in the Alxa Desert, north-central China

Cited by 48 publications

References 33 publications

Total organic carbon and its environmental significance for the surface sediments in groundwater recharged lakes from the Badain Jaran Desert, northwest China

Total organic carbon and its environmental significance for the surface sediments in groundwater recharged lakes from the Badain Jaran Desert, northwest China

The paleoenvironmental significance of spatial distributions of grain size in groundwater‐recharged lakes: A case study in the hinterland of the Badain Jaran Desert, northwest China

Water Loss Due to Increasing Planted Vegetation over the Badain Jaran Desert, China

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