Urban lake evolution and ecological protection of Wuhan city based on GIS

This study presents GIS to monitor urban lake area change in Wuhan city, including four time-series Landsat TM and ETM⁺ images of 1991, 1995, 2000 and 2002, Ikonos images of 2000 and 2002, and remote sensing images of Google Earth´s in 2005 were used here. Then we analyzed the temporal evolution characteristics of urban lake. The results showed that the total area of lakes in the urban area decreased up to 38.67km² in 15a. The temporal and spatial distribution of lake loss was affected by several factors and urbanization is closely related with the lake evolution. Rapid development of urbanization has brought lots of threats to lake ecosystem. It mainly included area diminishment, aggravation of water pollution, decline of biodiversity and decrease of available water resources. The present study suggested countermeasures for the sustainable utilization and protection of urban lakes.