The Long-Time Variation of Lake in Typical Desert Area and Its Human and Climate Change Causes: A Case Study of the Hongjian Nur

The change of inland lake area has a great impact on human life, ecological environment, and animal and plant habitats. But, the systematic and quantitative research on the long time change of water area and its human activity and climate change causes is very difficult. Here, taking the largest and youngest natural inland freshwater lake Hongjian Nur (HJN) in China as the study object, the long-term changes of water surface area of natural lakes and artificial reservoirs were retrieved. The impact of climate change on the change of HJN lake area is analyzed from the point of view of overall meteorological water shortage. The results showed that the natural lake area continued to decrease for 19 years from 1996 to 2015. On the contrary, the area of the reservoirs increased continuously. The determination coefficient of reservoir area and natural lake area is 0.357, which indicates that the impoundment of reservoirs has a significant impact on the decrease area of natural lake. The drought period for 13 years before 2011 also has a direct impact on the water area reduction of the lake. The future 1-2 years drought period or the transition from drought to humidity will threaten the maintenance of the existing water volume. Historical impact of multisource precipitation changes on the HJN water area proved the important influence of precipitation on the change of lake area. It is concluded that human activities and climate change will be the key constraints for maintaining ecological balance in lakes in the desert.