Twenty-five years of reclamation dynamics and potential eco-environmental risks along the Tarim River, NW China
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Twenty‑five years of reclamation dynamics and potential eco‑environmental risks along the Tarim River, NW China Guilin Liu1,2 · Gang Yin3 Received: 24 April 2019 / Accepted: 11 September 2020 / Published online: 29 September 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The ever-increasing land reclamations along the Tarim River caused by human activities have resulted in a series of potential eco-environmental risks. This paper reveals the spatial and temporal dynamics of reclamation and the associated potential eco-environmental risks. The results indicated that 70.30% of grasslands, 9.80% of woodlands and 16.04% of bare land were reclaimed during 1990–2015. Majority of the reclaimed land was mainly within the upper and middle reaches of Tarim River, especially within the 0–5 km the river channel buffer. The consequent effect of these unexpected reclamations was regional water unbalance of agricultural and ecological water usages. The consequent limitations in ecological water, intense reclamation and cotton cultivation led to desertification, water and soil pollution, habitat destruction and biodiversity loss. This paper provides a scientific evidence for the planning of reclamation, cotton cultivation and allocations of agricultural and ecological water. Keywords Spatio-temporal dynamics · Reclamation · Potential eco-environmental risks · Tarim River
Introduction Global change research has ascertained that environmental issues and their dynamics are mainly affected by natural factors and anthropogenic activities (Ge et al. 2005). Both the anthropogenic and the natural factors reduce the functional integrity of ecosystems by increasing their vulnerability and reducing their resilience while there is nothing much that can be done to prevent the natural causes. The anthropogenic activities however can be prevented, controlled and managed to reduce the risks on ecosystems (Cai et al. 2004). The management of the environmental risks posed by anthropogenic activities such as reclamation, crop cultivation and construction of farmland water conservancy within the extremely arid oasis agriculture regions should be given a high priority because they alter hydrological process at a * Guilin Liu [email protected]; [email protected] 1
School of Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
2
Guangdong Provincial Center for Smart Land Research, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
3
College of Resources and Environment Science, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, China
regional scale. These activities break the balance of fragile ecosystems causing a series of eco-environmental risks and hence can easily cause disasters. The consequent impacts of eco-environmental risks are damages on ecosystem’s structure and function, and can thus endanger the safety and health of ecosystems. Due to economic developments, human activities have caused a series of ecological and environmental risks. Thus, the ecological risk asses
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