Extensive lake shrinkages have been observed in the semi‐arid Mongolian Plateau over the past several decades, causing a great challenge to the local socio‐economic sustainability and ecological security. However, issue on the dominant drivers of this water loss has not been well addressed. In this work, variations in water area and water level of the Lake Dalinor during the period 1984–2018 were tracked using the satellite altimetry and Landsat images. Dominant drivers for the derived variations were then investigated based on the Standard Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI) analysis and the Vegetation Interface Processes model. Results showed that both the water area and water level displayed a two‐stage variation with a slightly increasing trend before 2000 and a drastic decline since 2000 (p < 0.01). The SPEI analysis revealed a close relationship between water level variations and the cumulative water anomalies at seasonal and annual scales. The model‐based attribution analysis suggested that climate change and anthropogenic impacts contributed 76.5% and 23.5% of the observed declining trend, respectively. Climate warming and drying dominated the water level decline since 2000, while the large‐scale conversion from the natural grassland to the seeded pasture might have accelerated this water loss process. This study confirmed the prominent impacts of climate warming and drying on the lake desiccation in the semi‐arid Mongolian Plateau and highlighted the gradually intensifying impacts of human activities such as grassland conversion on the lake water budget.

中文翻译：

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半干旱蒙古高原湖水流失的检测与归因-以达里诺尔湖为例

在过去的几十年中，在半干旱的蒙古高原上观察到了大面积的湖泊萎缩，这对当地的社会经济可持续性和生态安全构成了巨大挑战。但是，这种失水的主要驱动因素尚未得到很好的解决。在这项工作中，使用卫星测高仪和Landsat图像跟踪了1984-2018年期间达利诺湖水域和水位的变化。然后，根据标准降水蒸发指数（SPEI）分析和植被界面过程模型，研究了导致变化的主要驱动因素。结果表明，水域面积和水位都呈现出两个阶段的变化，在2000年前呈略有增加的趋势，而自2000年以来则急剧下降（p<0.01）。SPEI分析揭示了水位变化与季节性和年度尺度的累积水异常之间的密切关系。基于模型的归因分析表明，气候变化和人为影响分别占观测到的下降趋势的76.5％和23.5％。自2000年以来，气候变暖和干燥主导了水位的下降，而从天然草地到牧场的大规模转换可能加速了这一失水过程。这项研究证实了气候变暖和干燥对半干旱蒙古高原的湖泊干燥的显着影响，并强调了人类活动（如草地转换）对湖泊水预算的影响逐渐加剧。