Vegetation Area and Groundwater Change in Ejina River Basin, Inner Mongolia, China
2019 Volume 24 Issue 2 Pages 45-51
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2019 Volume 24 Issue 2 Pages 45-51
Due to excessive water usage in the middle and upper basin, the discharge in Ejina River Basin, Heihe River, China, has been decreasing and the lakes in the downstream have dried up recently. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the change of vegetation area in Eajina River Basin, interpreting two periods (1990 and 2009) of Landsat images using maximum likelihood method. The result showed that the vegetation area decreased in the two decades from 23.1% to 18.4% by 223.4km2, of which the decrease ratio was about 20%. The decreased parts changed into gobi, desert or arable land. Water area decreased from 1.6% to 0.8% by 39.9 km2, of which the decrease ratio was 52%. On the other hand, non-vegetation area increased from 75.3% to 80.8% by 263.3 km2. Remarkable changes of land cover are mostly accountable by the change of water availability because of agriculture promotion and/or environment conservation policies.
