Based on the analyses of environmental proxy data in lake sediments and instrumental records of Xinjiang in northwest China, the Holocene climate and hydrological variability and its environmental responses were studied in different time scales and regions. The results showed that the Holocene climate variability had obvious differences between the north and south of Xinjiang. In northern Xinjiang, the Holocene climate was dry in the early period, humid in the middle period, and then changed to dry in the late period. However, the climate transition times were not consistent in different regions. In southern Xin- jiang, although there were many different types of climate change patterns inferred from different catch- ments, the warm and wet climate was recorded in most lake sediments in the middle Holocene. According to comparisons of some millennium scale records in lake sediments, the climate was warm and dry in the past 100 years. It can be concluded the climate showed a trend of aridity in Holocene. Especially in recent 50 years, the lake area has been shrinking rapidly because of the population growth and social economic development, which brings some environmental problems. Lake level and area changes were sensitively affected by the climate variation in geological history of Xinjiang and the lake level will continue to shrink because of the drought climate and strengthened human activities.
With the classical statistical and geostatistical methods, the study of the spatial distribution and its in- fluence factors of soil water, salinity and organic matter was carried out for 0-70 cm soil layers in Manas River watershed. The results showed that the soil moisture data from all soil layers exhibited a normal distribution, with average values of 14.08%-21.55%. Geostatistical analysis revealed that the content of soil moisture had a moder- ate spatial autocorrelation with the ratios of nugget/sill ranging from 0.500 to 0.718, which implies that the spatial pattern of soil moisture is influenced by the combined effects of structural factors and random factors. Remarkable spatial distributions with stripped and mottled features were found for soil moisture in all different soil layers. The landform and crop planting had a relatively big influence on the spatial distribution of soil moisture; total soil salinity was high in east but low in west, and non-salinized soil and lightly salinized soil appeared at the northwest and southwest of the study area. Under the effect of reservoir leakage, the heavily salinized soils are widely distributed in the middle of the study area. The areas of the non-salinized and lightly salinized soils decreased gradually with soil depth increment, which is contrary to the case for saline soils that reached a maximum of 245.67 km2 at the layer of 50-70 cm. The types of soil salinization in Manas River watershed were classified into four classes： the sulfate, chloride-sulfate, sulfate-chloride and chloride. The sulfate salinized soil is most widely distributed in the surface layer. The areas of chloride-sulfate, sulfate-chloride, and chloride salinized soils increased gradually along with the increment of soil depth; the variation range of the average values of soil organic matter content was be- tween 7.48%-11.33%. The ratios of nugget/sill reduced gradually from 0.698 to 0.299 with soil depth increment, which shows that the content of soil organic matter has a moderate spatia
Jilili ABUDUWAILIYang TANGMireban ABULIMITIDongWei LIULong MA
