Environmental variability and human activity over the past 140 years documented by sediments of Ebinur Lake in arid central Asia

Submitted: 17 October 2016
Accepted: 29 April 2017
Published: 18 May 2017
Abstract Views: 3046
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A short (50-cm-long) sediment core from Ebinur Lake in arid central Asia has been analyzed for various environmental proxies, including organic matter content, δ13C in organic matter, magnetic susceptibility, heavy metal contents, and stable isotopic compositions of bulk carbonate (δ18O and δ13C). The results reveal that the evolutionary stages inferred from environmental indicators have an asynchronous nature. If the asynchrony of periodic changes in multi-environmental proxies is ignored, important information may be lost, especially regarding anthropogenic influences. On the basis of magnetic susceptibility and heavy metal contents, human activities appear to have resulted in increases in surface erosion and measurable heavy-metal accumulation from the mid-1960s, whereas the organic matter contents, which display an obvious shift in the late 1930s, correlate with regional climate. However, the changes in the stable isotopes of bulk carbonate are mainly controlled by the isotopic composition of the host water which is generally consistent with the lake level. From the late 1870s to the 1960s, the lake was in a natural evolutionary state. From the 1960s to the mid-2000s, the runoff feeding Ebinur Lake dropped rapidly, in association with a sharp increase in agricultural development. Finally, beginning in the early twenty-first century, the climate became wetter than during the earlier two stages, and as agricultural water demand decreased, surface runoff once again increased. It is noted that, although the different proxies respond differently to climate changes and human activities, any analysis of environmental evolution should consider them each individually, in order to fully understand the complex interactions between climate and human influence. 

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Supporting Agencies

the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the West Light Foundation of The Chinese Academy of Sciences, the High-level Talents Introduction Project in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (2015), Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS

How to Cite

Liu, Wen, Long Ma, Jinglu Wu, and Jilili Abuduwaili. 2017. “Environmental Variability and Human Activity over the past 140 Years Documented by Sediments of Ebinur Lake in Arid Central Asia”. Journal of Limnology 76 (3). https://doi.org/10.4081/jlimnol.2017.1587.

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