Lake Changes in Inner Mongolia over the Past 30 Years and the Associated Factors

Lakes are important water resources in Inner Mongolia and play essential roles in flood storage, water source maintenance, aquaculture, water volume regulation, and the regional ecological balance. However, most lakes in Inner Mongolia have undergone significant shrinkage over the past few decades. In order to quantify the lake changes in Inner Mongolia and analyze the factors associated with these changes, information about 546 lakes in seven years (1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2018) was retrieved using 30 m resolution Landsat images taken of the entire region over 29 years (1989–2018). In addition, water census data from 2010 and 1:250,000 geological maps were used as references. The analysis revealed that the lakes in Inner Mongolia exhibited rapidly decreasing trends during the past three decades, with both the area and the number of lakes decreasing to a minimum by 2010. The number of lakes with areas of >1 km2 decreased from 384 in 1990 to 301 in 2018; the total area of lakes with individual areas of >1 km2 decreased from 4905.74 km2 in 1990 to 4187.45 km2 in 2018. With respect to the lake distribution among different geomorphological units, the analysis revealed that the lake shrinkage was most pronounced on the West Liaohe Plain, followed by the northern Inner Mongolian Plateau. Furthermore, in relation to different climatic zones, lake shrinkage primarily occurred in the mid-temperate semi-arid zone, wherein the lake area decreased by 776.6 km2. We hypothesize that the changes in the lake number and area in Inner Mongolia resulted from the combined effects of natural conditions and anthropogenic disturbances; possibly, lake shrinkage was mainly driven by the rising temperature and decreasing precipitation, along with water regulation projects, agricultural irrigation, mining development, and population growth that also had non-negligible effects on the lakes