Environmental hazards from population pressure in the Jinta Oasis, arid northwestern China

Oasis is not only the most concentrated area of human activities in arid region but also the largest area where artificial disturbances occur at the regional scale. The Jinta Oasis is a very typical artificial oasis in arid region of China and is set as one of the national land resource developing and representative areas in China. With the continuous increase in population and livestock number in Jinta Oasis, such severe problems of environmental degradation as serious land pollution and desertification, water environmental degradation, and vegetation degeneracy occur within the whole oasis. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2013