Abstract
Water resources in XinJiang are composed of surface water, ground water and glacier. Mainly, the little amount of precipitations and melted-snow water from high mountains, which are limited in summer season, has sustained agriculture production of XinJiang. It is strongly thought by the agricultural development act that there is a lack of water resources since the population rate increases as well as the water resources decrease, beside with the climatic conditions becomes dry with time in XinJiang. Looking at the outflow of the rivers and the area of the lakes, we can see that the long time range is not always connected with the decrease of water resources in XinJiang. For that reason, this study explores the spatial and temporal characteristics of water resources from both sides: human activities and climatic factors, using Geographical Information System (GIS) technique and Landsat images of Lake Wulungu basin, Lake Ayding basin, Lake Bostan basin and Lake Ebnur basin. The observation data for the past 50 years of 26 rivers, the CRU TS2.0 data set, world climate data and each year statistical yearbooks of XinJiang were used as an input data for this study. As a result, some remarkable changes of water resources in XinJiang were produced. It is supposed that the influence of human activities was strong during the period from 1950s until the second half of 1980s. In opposition, the influence of climate is strong from the second half of the 1980s until present. Both aspects are important to consider the durability of agricultural production in XinJiang.
