{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,1]],"date-time":"2026-04-01T06:39:53Z","timestamp":1775025593657,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":44,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2017,8,31]],"date-time":"2017-08-31T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1504137600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100012166","name":"National Key Research and Development Program of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["2016YFA0600403"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2016YFA0600403"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100012166","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The Aral Sea basin (ASB) is one of the most environmentally vulnerable regions to climate change and human activities. During the past 60 years, irrigation has greatly changed the water distribution and caused severe environmental issues in the ASB. Using remote sensing data, this study investigated the environmental changes induced by irrigation activities in this region. The results show that, in the past decade, land water storage has significantly increased in the irrigated upstream regions (13 km3 year\u22121) but decreased in the downstream regions (\u221227 km3 year\u22121) of the Amu Darya River basin, causing a water storage decrease in the whole basin (\u221220 km3 year\u22121). As a result, the water surface area of the Aral Sea has decreased from 32,000 in 2000 to 10,000 km2 in 2015. The shrinking Aral Sea exposed a large portion of the lake bottom to the air, increasing (decreasing) the daytime (nighttime) temperatures by about 1 \u00b0C year\u22121 (0.5 \u00b0C year\u22121). Moreover, there were other potential environmental changes, including drier soil, less vegetation, decreasing cloud and precipitation, and more severe and frequent dust storms. Possible biases in the remote sensing data due to the neglect of the shrinking water surface area of the Aral Sea were identified. These findings highlight the severe environmental threats caused by irrigation in Central Asia and call attention to sustainable water use in such dryland regions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs9090900","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2017,8,31]],"date-time":"2017-08-31T10:54:44Z","timestamp":1504176884000},"page":"900","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":42,"title":["Irrigation-Induced Environmental Changes around the Aral Sea: An Integrated View from Multiple Satellite Observations"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"9","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8102-2871","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Qinjian","family":"Jin","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA"},{"name":"Now at Center for Global Change Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jiangfeng","family":"Wei","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA"},{"name":"Now at Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters\/Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education\/International Joint Research Laboratory on Climate and Environment Change, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3030-0330","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zong-Liang","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA"},{"name":"CAS Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment Research for Temperate East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Peirong","family":"Lin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,8,31]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"417","DOI":"10.1038\/nclimate3275","article-title":"Drylands face potential threat under 2\u2009\u00b0C global warming target","volume":"7","author":"Huang","year":"2017","journal-title":"Nat. Clim. Chang."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"847","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1131634","article-title":"Global desertification: Building a science for dryland development","volume":"316","author":"Reynolds","year":"2007","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1665","DOI":"10.1016\/j.pnsc.2009.08.001","article-title":"Climate change impacts on crop yield, crop water productivity and food security\u2014A review","volume":"19","author":"Kang","year":"2009","journal-title":"Prog. Nat. Sci. Mater."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"43","DOI":"10.1080\/02626668809491222","article-title":"Trends in Irrigation Development, and Their Implications for Hydrologists and Water-Resources Engineers","volume":"33","author":"Higgins","year":"1988","journal-title":"Hydrol. Sci. J."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1170","DOI":"10.1126\/science.241.4870.1170","article-title":"Desiccation of the Aral Sea\u2014A Water Management Disaster in the Soviet-Union","volume":"241","author":"Micklin","year":"1988","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"166","DOI":"10.1038\/nclimate2837","article-title":"Accelerated dryland expansion under climate change","volume":"6","author":"Huang","year":"2016","journal-title":"Nat. Clim. Chang."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1951","DOI":"10.1111\/gcb.12846","article-title":"Carbon stock and its responses to climate change in Central Asia","volume":"21","author":"Li","year":"2015","journal-title":"Glob. Chang. Biol."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"47","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev.earth.35.031306.140120","article-title":"The Aral Sea disaster","volume":"35","author":"Micklin","year":"2007","journal-title":"Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci."},{"key":"ref_9","unstructured":"The World Bank (2017, August 15). Irrigation in Central Asia. Available online: http:\/\/siteresources.worldbank.org\/ECAEXT\/Resources\/publications\/Irrigation-in-Central-Asia\/Irrigation_in_Central_Asia-Full_Document-English.pdf."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"285","DOI":"10.1007\/s13201-012-0048-z","article-title":"Changes in water volume of the Aral Sea after 1960","volume":"2","author":"Gaybullaev","year":"2012","journal-title":"Appl. Water Sci."},{"key":"ref_11","first-page":"50","article-title":"Crisis of the Aral Sea","volume":"3","author":"Nurushev","year":"1999","journal-title":"Himal. Cent. Asian Stud."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"105","DOI":"10.1016\/j.aeolia.2017.01.001","article-title":"Understanding dust emission in the Bodele region by extracting locally mobilized dust aerosols from satellite Aerosol Optical Depth data using principal component analysis","volume":"24","author":"Parajuli","year":"2017","journal-title":"Aeolian Res."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"284","DOI":"10.1175\/1520-0442(2001)014<0284:CISATC>2.0.CO;2","article-title":"Changes in surface air temperature caused by desiccation of the Aral Sea","volume":"14","author":"Small","year":"2001","journal-title":"J. Clim."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Conrad, C., Schonbrodt-Stitt, S., Low, F., Sorokin, D., and Paeth, H. (2016). Cropping Intensity in the Aral Sea Basin and Its Dependency from the Runoff Formation 2000\u20132012. Remote Sens., 8.","DOI":"10.3390\/rs8080630"},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"418","DOI":"10.1038\/nature20584","article-title":"High-resolution mapping of global surface water and its long-term changes","volume":"540","author":"Pekel","year":"2016","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3313","DOI":"10.1002\/2014JC009988","article-title":"Long-term hydrological changes of the Aral Sea observed by satellites","volume":"119","author":"Shi","year":"2014","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res. Oceans"},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1175\/2013EI000537.1","article-title":"Estimating the Effects of Anthropogenic Modification on Water Balance in the Aral Sea Watershed Using GRACE: 2003\u201312","volume":"18","author":"Zmijewski","year":"2014","journal-title":"Earth Interact."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"9296","DOI":"10.1002\/jgrd.50712","article-title":"Enhanced Deep Blue aerosol retrieval algorithm: The second generation","volume":"118","author":"Hsu","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res. Atmos."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"557","DOI":"10.1109\/TGRS.2004.824067","article-title":"Aerosol properties over bright-reflecting source regions","volume":"42","author":"Hsu","year":"2004","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2989","DOI":"10.5194\/amt-6-2989-2013","article-title":"The Collection 6 MODIS aerosol products over land and ocean","volume":"6","author":"Levy","year":"2013","journal-title":"Atmos. Meas. Tech."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"853","DOI":"10.1175\/1520-0477(1996)077<0853:CATERE>2.0.CO;2","article-title":"Clouds and the Earth\u2019s radiant energy system (CERES): An earth observing system experiment","volume":"77","author":"Wielicki","year":"1996","journal-title":"Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"L09607","DOI":"10.1029\/2004GL019920","article-title":"The gravity recovery and climate experiment: Mission overview and early results","volume":"31","author":"Tapley","year":"2004","journal-title":"Geophys. Res. Lett."},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7547","DOI":"10.1002\/2016JB013007","article-title":"High-resolution CSR GRACE RL05 mascons","volume":"121","author":"Save","year":"2016","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res. Sol. Earth"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"38","DOI":"10.1175\/JHM560.1","article-title":"The TRMM Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA): Quasi-Global, Multiyear, Combined-Sensor Precipitation Estimates at Fine Scales","volume":"8","author":"Huffman","year":"2007","journal-title":"J. Hydrometeorol."},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"280","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2012.03.014","article-title":"Trend-preserving blending of passive and active microwave soil moisture retrievals","volume":"123","author":"Liu","year":"2012","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"425","DOI":"10.5194\/hess-15-425-2011","article-title":"Developing an improved soil moisture dataset by blending passive and active microwave satellite-based retrievals","volume":"15","author":"Liu","year":"2011","journal-title":"Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"35458","DOI":"10.1038\/srep35458","article-title":"Changes in Central Asia's Water Tower: Past, Present and Future","volume":"6","author":"Chen","year":"2016","journal-title":"Sci. Rep."},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"275","DOI":"10.1175\/JHM-D-12-079.1","article-title":"Where Does the Irrigation Water Go? An Estimate of the Contribution of Irrigation to Precipitation Using MERRA","volume":"14","author":"Wei","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. Hydrometeorol."},{"key":"ref_29","unstructured":"Bank TW (2017, August 15). Saving a Corner of the Aral Sea. Available online: http:\/\/www.worldbank.org\/en\/results\/2005\/09\/01\/saving-a-corner-of-the-aral-sea."},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"79","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jaridenv.2014.06.008","article-title":"Impact of the desiccation of the Aral Sea on summertime surface air temperatures","volume":"110","author":"Smith","year":"2014","journal-title":"J. Arid Environ."},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"627","DOI":"10.1016\/S0140-6736(99)04753-4","article-title":"Exposure to airborne dust contaminated with pesticide in the Aral Sea region","volume":"355","author":"Wiggs","year":"2000","journal-title":"Lancet"},{"key":"ref_32","unstructured":"Bozheyeva, G., Kunakbayev, Y., and Yeleukenov, D. (2017, August 15). Former Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan. Past Present and Future. Available online: http:\/\/nsarchive2.gwu.edu\/\/NunnLugar\/2015\/49.%201999-06-00%20Former%20Soviet%20Biological%20Weapons%20Facilities%20in%20Kazakhstan.Past%20Present%20and%20Future%20%28from%20Web%29.pdf."},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"ScienceScope (2002). Bioweapons cleanup. Science, 295, 603.","DOI":"10.1126\/science.295.5555.603b"},{"key":"ref_34","first-page":"403","article-title":"Central Asia: Democratic deficit and challenges of sustainable development","volume":"1","author":"Pandey","year":"2007","journal-title":"J. Environ. Res. Dev."},{"key":"ref_35","first-page":"32","article-title":"The Aral Sea Disaster and Health Crisis","volume":"20","author":"Anand","year":"2015","journal-title":"IOSR J. Humanit. Soc. Sci."},{"key":"ref_36","first-page":"29","article-title":"The Aral Sea environmental health crisis","volume":"1","author":"Phillip","year":"2002","journal-title":"J. Rural Remote Environ. Health"},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"9897","DOI":"10.5194\/acp-15-9897-2015","article-title":"Consistent response of Indian summer monsoon to Middle East dust in observations and simulations","volume":"15","author":"Jin","year":"2015","journal-title":"Atmos. Chem. Phys."},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6329","DOI":"10.1175\/JCLI-D-15-0622.1","article-title":"Seasonal Responses of Indian Summer Monsoon to Dust Aerosols in the Middle East, India, and China","volume":"29","author":"Jin","year":"2016","journal-title":"J. Clim."},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"21","DOI":"10.1016\/j.aeolia.2016.02.002","article-title":"Diagnostic evaluation of the Community Earth System Model in simulating mineral dust emission with insight into large-scale dust storm mobilization in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)","volume":"21","author":"Parajuli","year":"2016","journal-title":"Aeolian Res."},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1536","DOI":"10.1002\/2014JD022471","article-title":"Seasonal dynamics of threshold friction velocity and dust emission in Central Asia","volume":"120","author":"Xi","year":"2015","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res. Atmos."},{"key":"ref_41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7267","DOI":"10.1007\/s12665-015-4739-2","article-title":"Building a new and sustainable \u201cSilk Road economic belt\u201d","volume":"74","author":"Li","year":"2015","journal-title":"Environ. Earth Sci."},{"key":"ref_42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Normile, D. (2017, August 30). China\u2019s Belt and Road Infrastructure Plan Also Includes Science. Available online: http:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/news\/2017\/05\/china-s-belt-and-road-infrastructure-plan-also-includes-science.","DOI":"10.1126\/science.aal1198"},{"key":"ref_43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"43102","DOI":"10.1038\/srep43102","article-title":"The world\u2019s earliest Aral-Sea type disaster: the decline of the Loulan Kingdom in the Tarim Basin","volume":"7","author":"Mischke","year":"2017","journal-title":"Sci. Rep."},{"key":"ref_44","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"034021","DOI":"10.1088\/1748-9326\/6\/3\/034021","article-title":"On the causes of the shrinking of Lake Chad","volume":"6","author":"Gao","year":"2011","journal-title":"Environ. Res. Lett."}],"container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-4292\/9\/9\/900\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T18:43:44Z","timestamp":1760208224000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-4292\/9\/9\/900"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2017,8,31]]},"references-count":44,"journal-issue":{"issue":"9","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,9]]}},"alternative-id":["rs9090900"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/rs9090900","relation":{},"ISSN":["2072-4292"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2072-4292","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2017,8,31]]}}}