Monitoring the Aral Sea Landscape Change

摘要

The overall aim of this research project is to develop the basis for a long-term ecologic research to investigate the temporal and spatial pattern of airborne salt-dust deposition across Central Asia. The study of aeolian processes manifested by sand and dust storms require disperse and different technical backgrounds of researchers. The development of a unified geographic information system (GIS) for data storage and analysis descrease operational cost and provides map and data for all scientific community. The monitoring information system uses an Internet-based GIS (WebGIS) technology, and has obtained information about soil erosion in Aral Sea area through: high temporal resolution remote sensing imagery concurrent with ground data collection and analysis; land use and land cover change using Envisat and MERIS data; wind data and volume of sand/dust transportation. The paper also describes how the WebGIS application was developed, implemented and used.