Comparison of Typical Alpine Lake Surface Elevation Variations and Different Driving Forces by Remote Sensing Altimetry Method

Yaming Pan; Weibing Du; Dandan Ma; Xiaoxuan Lyu; Chaoying Cheng

doi:10.3390/ijerph192417090

Comparison of Typical Alpine Lake Surface Elevation Variations and Different Driving Forces by Remote Sensing Altimetry Method

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Dec 19;19(24):17090. doi: 10.3390/ijerph192417090.

Authors

Yaming Pan¹, Weibing Du^{1

2

3}, Dandan Ma¹, Xiaoxuan Lyu¹, Chaoying Cheng¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Surveying and Land Information Engineering, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo 454003, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China.
³ Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System Application, Urumqi 830011, China.

Abstract

Alpine lakes play a significant role in improving watershed ecology, adjusting water storage, and managing regional water resources. They are also a valuable freshwater reservoir, flood storage, and species gene pool in Central Asia. This article validated the accuracy of the CryoSat-2 footprints altimetry dataset for the Lake Bosten and Lake Issyk-Kul ranges. The time series for the surface elevations of the Central Asian alpine lakes Karakul and Chatyrkul were established, based on footprints altimetry data. The lake hydrological drivers were analyzed using remote sensing meteorological reanalysis data of the lake basins. The following main conclusions were reached. The CryoSat-2 footprints altimetry dataset has high confidence in lake surface elevation monitoring. Compared with Hydroweb monitoring results, the agreement between the monitoring results in the range between Lake Bosten and Lake Issyk-Kul are 0.96 and 0.84. The surface elevation of Lake Karakul shows an overall increasing trend with a variation rate of +7.7 cm/yr from 2010 to 2020, which has a positive correlation with the temperature in the basin. This indicates that the increased temperature, which results in the increased snow and ice meltwater in the basin, is the main driving force of the increased lake evolution. The lake surface elevation of Lake Chatyrkul shows an overall decreasing trend, with a variation rate of -9.9 cm/yr from 2010 to 2020, which has a negative correlation with the temperature in the basin. This suggests that Lake Chatyrkul is poorly recharged by snow and ice meltwater. The main driving force of its evolution is the increased evaporative output of the lake due to the increase in temperature. These conclusions prove that temperature and alpine glacial variability within the lake basin play an important role in lake surface elevation variations in alpine regions of Central Asia.

Keywords: CryoSat-2; alpine lake; driving forces; lake surface elevation.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Environmental Monitoring / methods
Ice
Lakes*
Remote Sensing Technology*
Temperature

Substances

Ice

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Innovation Interdisciplinary Team Funding Project (grant number JCTD-2019-20), the Xinjiang Tianshan Innovation Team (grant number 2020D14016), the Joint Fund of Collaborative Innovation Center of Geo-Information Technology for Smart Central Plains, Henan Province and Key Laboratory of Spatiotemporal Perception and Intelligent processing, Ministry of Natural Resources (grant number 211102), the PI project of Collaborative Innovation Center of Geo-Information Technology for Smart Central Plains, Henan Province (grant number 2020C002), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Universities of Henan Province (grant number NSFRF220424), the project of Provincial Key Technologies R & D Program of Henan (grant number 222102320306), and the Doctoral Fund of Henan Polytechnic University (grant number B2022-8).