Environmental Evolution Change Detection and Primary Analysis of Lop Nur in Recent 40 Years Using Multi-Temporal Imagery

The objective of this paper is to investigate the environmental evolution of Lop Nur from 1972 to 2010. The research work depended on classifying and interpreting multi-temporal satellite images. Combined with the field investigations, primarily results of change detection and some analysis were given to study the process of environment evolution in recent 40 years. It can be found that Lop Nur is located in arid environment, which is described as "dry core" of the world, and the ground surface evaporation is very large. Owing to the natural weathering and accumulation of wind-blown sand, the texture of the "Ear" feature and dried-up riverbeds were increasingly becoming vague. Moreover, there are some obvious traces of human activities on the images, such as potash works and brine canal. The area of the potash works in 2002 and 2010 were 23km² and 187km² representatively, and it was quite a change in the 8 years. During the past about 40 years, the environmental evolution had been affected by many kinds of natural factors and human activities, and this study will give some help for understanding the relationship between them.