Climate and Environmental Change

Digital regionalization of geomorphology in Xinjiang

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  • 1. Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, CAS, Urumqi 830011, China|
    2. State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China|
    3. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, China

Received date: 2008-08-06

  Revised date: 2009-01-12

  Online published: 2009-10-25

Supported by

Consulting projects of CAS Academicians, No.KZCX3-SW-347; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.40871177; Project of State Key Lab of Resources and Environmental Information System, No.O88RA304SA; CAS Knowledge Innovation Project

Abstract

This paper presents a method of geomorphologic regionalization for Xinjiang, with the use of Srtm-DEM (resolution 90 m) and TM images for 1990 (resolution 30 m). After interpretation and classification of geomorphologic types, the present research focuses on the qualitative and quantitative distribution of different geomorphologic types based on geographical grid analysis. Then, by using system clustering analysis method, geomorphologic types are grouped into divisions. The resulting geomorphologic regionalization hierarchy of Xinjiang includes three levels, i.e., macro-landform divisions, medium-landform divisions, and micro-landform divisions, containing 6, 23 and 200 types, respectively. This method makes it possible to digitally delimit geomorphologic regions. Comparison and verification show that the spatial precision of the boundaries of geomorphologic subareas in Xinjiang is very high.

Cite this article

CHAI Huixia, ZHOU Chenghu, CHEN Xi, CHENG Weiming . Digital regionalization of geomorphology in Xinjiang[J]. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2009 , 19(5) : 600 -614 . DOI: 10.1007/s11442-009-0600-4

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