Long-term detection and spatiotemporal variation analysis of open-surface water bodies in the Yellow River Basin from 1986 to 2020

Accurately investigating long-term information about open-surface water bodies can contribute to water resource protection and management. However, due to the limits of big-data calculations for remote sensing, there has been no specific study on the long-term changes in the water bodies in the Yellow River Basin. Thus, in this study, we developed a new combined extraction rule to build an entire annual-scale open-surface water body dataset for 1986–2020 with excellent effectiveness in eliminating the interference of shadows in the Yellow River Basin using all of the available Landsat images. For the first time, the spatial distribution, change trends, conversion processes, and the heterogeneity of the surface water bodies in the Yellow River Basin were analyzed comprehensively to the best of our knowledge. The extraction results had an overall accuracy of 99.70 % and a kappa coefficient of 0.90, which were validated using 34,073 verification points selected on high-resolution Google Earth images and random Landsat images. The total area of water bodies initially decreased (1986–2000) and then increased (2001−2020); however, only the size of the permanent water bodies increased in most areas, while the size of most of the seasonal water bodies decreased. In regions with human-made water bodies, the non-water areas were substantially converted to seasonal and permanent water bodies; however, in areas with natural water bodies, many permanent and seasonal water bodies were gradually converted to non-water areas. Thus, most of the increases in the water bodies occurred in the form of artificial lakes and reservoirs, while most of the decreases in the water body area occurred in natural wetlands and lakes. The areas of both the permanent and seasonal water bodies were positively correlated with precipitation, but only the area of the seasonal water bodies was negatively correlated with temperature.