Changes of the Glaciers and the Glacier Water Resources in the Typical River Basins on the North and South Slopes of the Tianshan Mountains since 1960s

Glacier is a kind of "solid reservoir" build by nature,which occupies an important status in the composing of water resources.Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region is located in the inland arid region in the northwestern China,in which there are a large number of mountain glaciers.The glaciers and the melting runoff from the glaciers provide an reliable guarantee of water resources for the irrigated farming in the region.The changes of the glaciers and the melting runoff from the glaciers in Xinjian,especially in the Tianshan Mountain since 1960 were analyzed based on Chinese Glacier Catalogue and some others observation data of glaciers.The results showed The changes of the glaciers in Tianshan Mountain presented basically a cancrizans trend because of the impact of global warming since 1960.The glacier areas reduced averagely for 12% during the period from 1963 to 2000.But there were regional differencies due to the impact of geography position and physiognomy conditions of the different valley catchment areas.The runoff in most rivers which are supplied by melting runoff from glacier in the Tianshan Mountain presented an increasing trend along with the increase of melting runoff from glacier resulting by glacier inintense moving back.