HR: 1340h
AN: B33D-1592    [Abstracts]
TI: Mapping Water Use Efficiency for the Xinjiang Province in Northwestern China
AU: * Veroustraete, F
EM: frank.veroustraete@vito.be
AF: Centre for Remote Sensing and Earth Observation Processes, Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Boeretang 200, Mol, Ant BE-2400, Belgium
AU: Verstraeten, W
EM: willem.verstraeten@biw.kuleuven.be
AF: Geomatics Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E, Heverlee, BE-3001, Belgium
AU: Li, Q
EM: liqinlqql@yahoo.com.cn
AF: Xinjiang Institute for Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 40-3 South Beijing Rd., Urumqi, 830011, China
AU: Dong, Q
EM: qinghan.dong@vito.be
AF: Centre for Remote Sensing and Earth Observation Processes, Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Boeretang 200, Mol, Ant BE-2400, Belgium
AU: Van Roey, T
EM: tom.vanroey@vito.be
AF: Centre for Remote Sensing and Earth Observation Processes, Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Boeretang 200, Mol, Ant BE-2400, Belgium
AB: The Tarim river basin, one of the basins integrated in the UNESCO – HELP Programme, is located in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in Northwestern China. It is one of the world's largest closed hydrological drainage systems, and has ideal soils for agriculture,… if enough water is available. Farmers in the province produce one- sixth of China's total cotton production. Since the 1950's however, excessive land reclamation, over-grazing and increased utilization of water resources in the upper reaches of the basin intensified environmental degradation. This impacted on cattle stock reduction (by water shortage), withered poplars and vegetation, along the lower reaches of the basin. Riparian forest degraded with a reduction in its area of 200 000 ha in total. Higher water use combined with a gradual mean yearly temperature increase due to climate change caused serious hydrological problems in the basin. Since the 1970's a strong drying out of the lower region is elicited. This phenomenon degraded the basin's downstream ecosystems, with an expansion of desertification as a consequence. Quite conspicuously, the Tarim river has shortened by 320 km, onward the period mentioned above. In the lower region of the basin, the situation is very serious. It can in fact be described as an ecological disaster, with dying trees and vegetation, the drying out of rivers and as consequence a regression of the river fish population as well as increased salt deposits. In the ARCHIMOD bilateral project between Belgium and China, important objectives are the description of the phenomena cited above using hydraulic modelling for some sub-basins of the Tarim as well as the application of remote sensing to estimate evapotranspiration (ETR), soil moisture content (SMC) and water use efficiency (WUE) at the scale of the Xinjiang province. Te estimate WUE at this scale the carbon exchange model C-Fix was applied. Our paper focusses on the application of remote sensing to map WUE for the Xinjiang province, with the objective to estimate the surface areas eliciting a high water use by agricultural crops.
DE: 0416 Biogeophysics
DE: 0428 Carbon cycling (4806)
DE: 0480 Remote sensing
DE: 0540 Image processing
DE: 1615 Biogeochemical cycles, processes, and modeling (0412, 0414, 0793, 4805, 4912)
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting