[Preliminary research on environmental characteristics of oasis-desert ecotone].

ABSTRACT

Taking Minqin Oasis in the downstream of Shiyanghe Rivers as example, the shrub characteristics of sand dune, which was closely related to the vegetation of the interface between the outside of oasis and desert, was studied in this paper. The change of vegetation coverage and dune density indicated that the vegetation coverage in the ecotone was obviously higher than that in the outside of oasis and in drift desert. There existed an area outside oasis that was obviously affected by human activies and 0-600 m away from the outside of oasis. Meanwhile, the appearing position of area outside oasis was different in different place. The naked area ratio of dune in the area outside oasis was the biggest, so that the area outside oasis was the main resource of drift sand resulting in desertification of oasis. Over extracting ground water in oasis district resulted in a forming of dropping funnel of ground water there, and resulted in a fluid of ground water from desert to oasis. Ultimately, human activites aggravated those processes to some extent.