The Impact of Human Activities on the Water-Level Changes of Bosten Lake

Abstract

Bosten Lake, which locates in arid and desert zone, is the largest lake in Xinjiang, and is the largest inland freshwater lake in China. It has giant value in environment, ecology and economy. The water level of Bosten Lake has taken place tremendously in the recent 50 years, the water level descended from 1048m above sea level in 1958 to that of1045m in 1987, and ascended from 1045m to 1048.9m during the period of 1988¡ª2002, it is in the highest level now. According to the records in recent 50 years, this paper analyzed the effect of human activities, restored the water level of natural environment quantitatively. The research results show that the change of human¡¯s effect undergo the process from weak to strong to weak, in which, the effect of human activities is the strongest from 1970s to 1980s, the effect has been weakened since 1990s.