@inbook{0eb74460f4764bcabb97bb11cd93d458,
title = "Lop Nur in NW China: Its Natural State, and a Long History of Human Impact",
abstract = "Lop Nur is a large salt-crust covered playa in the eastern part of the Tarim Basin in northwestern China. Its centre was filled by a lake with a surface area of more than 2000 km2 in the early 1930s for the last time. Geological evidence and historical documents indicate that a large hyperhaline lake existed in the Lop Nur Basin until ca. 2000 years ago. Most regions of the former lake basin desiccated when the Chinese Empire was extended towards the arid and semi-arid regions in the west during the Han Dynasty as a result of water withdrawal from the tributaries of Lop Nur for irrigation farming. Surface water inflow in Lop Nur is probably mostly controlled by the intensity of farming activities in the catchment of the lake since that time. Current trends in population increase, claiming of arable land and industrialization upstream of Lop Nur imply that the ancient lake region will remain dry in the future.",
keywords = "Desiccation, Irrigation farming, Lake history, Tarim Basin, Xinjiang",
author = "Steffen Mischke and Chenglin Liu and Jiafu Zhang",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.",
year = "2020",
doi = "10.1007/978-3-030-42254-7\_7",
language = "English",
series = "Springer Water",
publisher = "Springer Nature",
pages = "207--233",
booktitle = "Springer Water",
address = "United States",
}