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Abstract: This research examines the impact of climate change and land cover change on river runoff in the Mongolian part of the Selenge River basin. The Mann-Kendall analysis (MK), Innovative Trend Analysis Method (ITAM), and Slope Estimator Test (SET) methods were employed for the statistical analysis of climate and runoff series in the Selenge River basin. Data series were segmented into 10-year intervals, and land cover change (CA) was determined as the difference between the beginning and end of the selected periods. As for data used in the study, climate and river runoff data are used from 1990 to 2020 from the hydro-meteorological stations and gauges at the Ulaanbaatar, Tsetserleg, Orkhon, Baruunkharaa, Moron, Tsagaan-Uur, and Tosontsengel sites. Also, land cover data from 1990-2020 was issued by the National Geomatics Center of China. with a spatial resolution of 30 meters at 10-year intervals were used. The results of the study show that runoff of rivers in the Selenge River basin has had certain decreasing trends in the last 30 years. Climate change in the basin has contributed to this decreasing trend of river runoff. During the last 30 years, the average annual air temperature has increased by 0.5 °C in the Selenge River Basin. The sum of annual precipitation in the basin ranges from 200 to 400 mm and the long-term variation of the annual precipitation is relatively low and the annual precipitation amount has been decreasing in recent years. During the last 3 decades, the annual river runoff of the Selenge River at Zuunburen station varies from 125.2 to 576.3 m3/s and it is estimated that river runoff is decreased by 82.6 m3/s over this period at the same site. As indicated by the results of our study, the air temperature, a key natural and climate factor, has increased by 0.09 degrees each year. Additionally, the annual sum of precipitation and river runoff has decreased to some extent in the basin. In terms of land cover change, the area of water bodies and wetlands has significantly altered in the Selenge River Basin. At the same time, the area of cultivated land, impervious land, or urban area, that is impacted by human activities, has increased significantly in the last 30 years. The significant change in land cover as one of the main factors for the formation of the river runoff in the basin has influenced the decreasing trend of the river's discharge, particularly since 1995. Human influence such as mining, industry, agriculture, and urbanization especially has increased in the Selenge river basin.
According to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 15.3), frequent sand and dust storms (SDSs) in the spring are a long-term challenge to the prevention and control of land degradation on the Mongolian plateau. In this study, MODIS remote sensing data are used to monitor and analyse SDS events on the Mongolian Plateau. The annual distribution of spring SDSs (March to May) from 2000 to 2021 are obtained based on the dust storm detection index. The overall classification accuracy is 85.24% and the kappa coefficient is 0.7636. Results show a decrease in the overall frequency of SDS events, where storm events in 2000–2010 are significantly higher than those in the second decade. The cross-border regions between China and Mongolia appear to be SDS intensity centers, particularly those in southern Mongolia. Precipitation exhibits a strong negative correlation with the area affected by SDS, and the correlation coefficient is – 0.72. The increase in barren and sand contributes primarily to the increase in SDS, whereas wind prevention and sand control projects undertaken by the Mongolian and Chinese governments promote regional restoration. Policies pertaining to cross-board sandstorm responses on the Mongolian Plateau are recommended.
Mongolia is one of the growing Asian countries. Migration, and concentration of the population have led to urban development problems, and the urgent need to provide housing to citizens is increasing. As a result, small lakes in cities are formed by using gravel deposits located near river beds in the surrounding area of the city for the construction of buildings, structures and roads. We've been doing research of seasonal variation of water quality parameters, nutrients and trace metals, their vertical profile in one of these artificial lakes, Lake Bulan. Small lakes located near urban areas can play an important role in the ecosystem and have a positive impact in urban environment. In this sense, studying the water quality and biological pollution of Bulan Lake is important for the protection of the lake's ecosystem. This is the first seasonal observation study on nutrient dynamics undertaken in a small freshwater lake with eutrophication in Mongolia. Water samples were collected seasonally from 3 site in the lake from September 2019 to August 2022. The WQI /water quality index/ was 46.4+0.79 that indicated as polluted. The average concentration of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) in the surface lake water had a wide seasonal variation from 0.26 ± 0.11 mg N/l in August to 1.44±0.08 mg N/l in January. Seasonal differences were also observed in the vertical profiles. Concentrations were relatively similar at the various water depths in April and September at turnover time. Thermal stratification was observed when the lake was covered in ice, with the maximum concentrations being observed in the bottom layer in the months of January and August. Results indicated that both the summer and winter stratifications are important for regeneration of nutrients in the bottom layer, biochemical cycling in small and shallow lakes in Mongolia.
Biodiversity conservation is an important aspect of sustainable development. The leading international environmental and sustainability programs – the Aichi Biodiversity Aims and the Sustainable Development Goals – have pledged countries to protect important habitats by preserving a certain percentage of their land and sea areas. In line with the goal of expanding the protected area network set out in these documents, many countries worldwide aim to expand the network of protected areas (PAs) in their territories. At the beginning of 2020, 21% of the land in Mongolia is under special protection. In order to protect its biodiversity, the Mongolian government has encouraged the expansion of its PA network gradually. According to the National Program on PAs (Mongolian Parliament, 1998), 30% of the nation's territory is expected to be covered by PAs by 2030. Regarding population density and size, Mongolia is a nation with the potential to expand its PAs. The chance for the expansion of PAs in Mongolia includes the formal identification and demarcation of PAs (or renewing and expanding previously established boundaries) to improve connectivity between the areas and increase the representation of natural zones and ecosystems. This research aims to identify the main factors or aspects that can affect the expansion of protected areas, rank them according to their impact, and put forward a recommendation that should be taken into account in the expansion of protected areas. In this research, knowledge-based management methods, target group survey, and Analytics hierarchy process (AHP) have been applied. Using the knowledge-based management method, 8 (eight) aspects or factors affecting the expansion of protected areas were identified, and a criteria tree was created by grouping them. In order to rank these criteria according to their importance or impact, we surveyed the target group. Then, the pair-wise matrixes were created for each rank, and the consistency ratio was calculated from them to check the reliability of the rank. Finally, the rankings were weighted and the most influential or significant criteria were determined.
The classic way to keep features and patterns of nature is to take them under special protection, but protected areas (PA) cannot remain outside of the risks associated with climate change and human activities. Therefore, we considered methods for conducting disaster risk assessment in protected areas, determining current threats from climate change and human activities, and developing a plan, which accounted for mitigation for the potential future risk. In this study, the risk of a specially protected area was assessed using a disaster risk survey method. The novelty of this study is to emphasize that management planning in PAs is based on the result of the risk assessment. In this study, the “Khuisiin Naiman nuur” protected area was selected as a representative PA and local economic, social, and disaster data, climatic data of the last decade, and interviews and surveys from representatives of herders, tour companies, travelers, local administrative organizations and private sectors were analyzed. Estimates were made based on data from focus group interviews and questionnaires. The methods and results of this study can be applied to other PA’s protection and utilization planning.
This is the first seasonal observation study on nutrient dynamics undertaken in a small freshwater lake with eutrophication in Mongolia. The vertical profile and seasonal fluctuation of nutrients are crucial to understanding the biogeochemical cycles in aquatic systems. In this study, field research was carried out at a small and shallow lake, Lake Bulan, in the lower Kharaa River basin. The area has been receiving increased nutrient loads from the water catchment area for the last 20 years. Water samples were collected seasonally from the lake from 2019-2022 and analyzed for nutrients, major cations, trace metals, and dissolved organic carbon. The average concentration of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) in the surface lake water had a wide seasonal variation from 0.26 ± 0.11 mg N/L in August to 1.44 ± 0.08 mg N/L in January. Seasonal differences were also observed in the vertical profiles. Concentrations were relatively similar at the various water depths in April and September at turnover time. Thermal stratification was observed when the lake was covered in ice, with the maximum concentrations being observed in the bottom layer in the months of January and August. The phosphate concentration showed a similar variation trend. These results indicate that both the summer and winter stratifications are important for regeneration of nutrients in the bottom layer, biochemical cycling, and mitigating impacts of global warming on small and shallow lakes in Mongolia.
The National University of Mongolia has been approved the strategic plan to develop university between 2016 and 2024 in December 2015 by Board of Trustees. Based on the following goals and objectives which are in the strategic plan, the policy-oriented research has been implemented. ⁓ Priority 3 - To lead the society with knowledge, to become a flagship of social development. Objective 3.1: Implementing strategy 5- To develop sustainable development indicators ⁓ Priority 4 - To introduce the best international management methods, Objective 4.3: Implementing strategy 1- To join the Times Higher Education-the university ranking organization and get the ranking. The objective of the research is to examine an implementation possibility of impact ranking methodology derived from SDGs by Times Higher Education and to access recent situation of Mongolian universities. In total, 8 state universities (6 are in capital and 2 are in the western and the eastern region), and 1 private university have been examined by the questionary that consisted of 7 sections and 159 questions. The 7 sections are i) social responsibility, human resource and health, ii) education, iii) grant, enrollment and graduation, iv) management and leadership, v) finance, vi) international and national cooperation, and vii) research and scholar. Uniqueness of the impact ranking is that overall score is generated from 4 SDGs (1 is compulsory SDG 17 and 3 are chosen by university). Based on the questionary result and face-to-face discussion, Otgontenger private university got highest score 74.8, Mongolian State University of Education got second high score 61.3, and National University of Mongolia got third high score 61.2. These scores calculated on any 3 SDGs that chosen by the university itself and 1 compulsory SDG-17 for partnership.
Grasslands on the Mongolian Plateau are critical for supporting local sustainable development. Sufficient measured sample information is the basis of remote sensing modeling and estimation of grassland production. Limited by field inventory costs, it is difficult to collect sufficient and widely distributed samples in the Mongolian Plateau, especially in transboundary areas, which affects the results of grassland production estimation. Here, considering that the measured sample points are sparse, this study took Xilingol League of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in China and Dornogovi Province in Mongolia as the study areas, introduced multiple interpolation methods for interpolation experiments, established a statistical regression model based on the above measured and interpolated samples combined with the normalized differential vegetation index, and discussed the applicability of grassland production estimation. The comparison results revealed that the point estimation biased sample hospital-based area disease estimation method and radial basis function showed the best interpolation results for grassland production in Xilingol League and Dornogovi Province, respectively. The power function model was suitable for grassland production estimation in both regions. By inversion, we obtained annual grassland production for 2010–2021 and the uneven spatial distribution of grassland production in both regions. In these two regions, the spatial change in grassland production showed a decreasing trend from northeast to southwest, and the interannual change generally showed a dynamic upward trend. The growth rate of grassland output was faster in Xilingol League than in Dornogovi Province with similar physical geography and climate conditions, indicating that the animal husbandry regulation policies play important roles beyond the influence of climate change. The study recommended grassland estimation methods for an area with sparse samples and the results can be used to support decision making for sustainable animal husbandry and grassland succession management.
The Mongolian Plateau (MP) is in the interior of Northeast Asia, far from the sea, and is extremely vulnerable to climate change and the deleterious effects of human activity. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) explicitly set land degradation neutrality (LDN) as one of the sub-goals of the seventeen main tasks. However, achieving this goal in Mongolia, a country with a fragile and sensitive ecological environment and a lack of high-precision land cover and land degradation monitoring data, is challenging. In this study, we established rules for remote sensing-based land cover classification and reference threshold ranges based on an object-oriented remote sensing interpretation method. Then, we obtained the refined land cover data of Mongolia from 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020 with 30-m resolution. The land cover classification of Mongolia comprises 11 categories: forest, meadow steppe, real steppe, desert steppe, barren, sand, desert, ice, water, cropland and built area. The overall classification accuracies, corresponding to the aforementioned data year, were 82.26%, 82.77%, 92.34% and 81.84%, respectively. We found that the land cover showed an apparent law of zonal gradual change. Among them, barren land, real steppe, desert steppe and forest were consistently the four major land cover types. Since the last 30 years, barren land areas present an overall decreasing trend, showing a trend of shrinking to the south. Overall, real steppe presents a wavelike decreasing trend, and desert steppe shows a fluctuating increasing trend. The forest area is relatively stable with no notable changes in spatial distribution. The dataset of this study fills the gaps in high-resolution land cover data for Mongolia, and it can provide fundamental scientific data to support sustainable development in the MP.
The aim of the present study was to evaluate human health and potential ecological risk assessment in the ger district of Ulaanbaatar city, Mongolia. To perform these risk assessments, soil samples were collected based on reference studies that investigated heavy element distribution in soil samples near the ger area in Ulaanbaatar city. In total, 42 soil samples were collected and 26 heavy metals were identified by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) methods. The measurement results were compared with the reference data in order to validate the soil contamination level. Although there was a large difference between the measurement results of the present and reference data, the general tendency was similar. Soil contamination was assessed by pollution indexes such as geoaccumulation index and enrichment factor. Mo and As were the most enriched elements compared with the other elements. The carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic risks to children exceeded the permissible limits, and for adults, only 12 out of 42 sampling points exceeded the permissible limit of noncarcinogenic effects.
In total, 28 drinking samples were collected between May 2020 and September 2020. Total 20 heavy metals were identified by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) methods at SGS company. The cancer risk evaluated by the USEPA guideline based on concentration of Co, Cr, As, Cd, Al and B elements.
Mongolia is a globally crucial region that has been suffering from land desertification. However, current understanding on Mongolia’s desertification is limited, constraining the desertification control and sustainable development in Mongolia and even other parts of the world. This paper studied spatiotemporal patterns, driving factors, mitigation strategies, and research methods of desertification in Mongolia through an extensive review of literature. Results showed that: (i) remote sensing monitoring of desertification in Mongolia has been subject to a relatively low spatial resolution and considerable time delay, and thus high-resolution and timely data are needed to perform a more precise and timely study; (ii) the contribution of desertification impacting factors has not been quantitatively assessed, and a decoupling analysis is desirable to quantify the contribution of factors in different regions of Mongolia; (iii) existing desertification prevention measures should be strengthened in the future. In particular, the relationship between grassland changes and husbandry development needs to be considered during the development of desertification prevention measures; (iv) the multi-method study (particularly interdisciplinary approaches) and desertification model development should be enhanced to facilitate an in-depth desertification research in Mongolia. This study provides a useful reference for desertification research and control in Mongolia and other regions of the world.
The large number of people living together in urban areas requires a comprehensive solutions for issues such as the reasonable allocation and adequate use of natural resources, urban planning, and efficient waste management to meet the city’s needs. One of the main factors influencing the health and comfort of urban residents is the supply of clean water and sewerage systems. Therefore, in order to rationally allocate and use water resources to meet urban needs, and to create a healthy and comfortable living environment for city residents, it is necessary to develop an integrated water resources management plan at the national and basin levels, as well as an integrated water management plan and assessment for city level. In addition to assessing the current state of water management, it is important to identify factors and trends that may further strain water resources to prevent future risks. To address the pressures on water management in Ulaanbaatar and Darkhan, representing Mongolia’s urban areas, the City Blueprint Approach, developed by the EU Water Innovation Partnership and the Dutch Institute of Water Cycle, was used in this study. Currently, this approach is used in about 80 cities in more than 40 countries, it is a relatively new and innovative method among Asian cities. As a result, water management in Ulaanbaatar and Darkhan is hampered by both social, economic, and environmental factors
River water and sediments collected from the Erdenet, Gavil, and Khangal Rivers, near the Erdenet Cu–Mo mine were analyzed for their rare earth elements (REE) and yttrium (YREE) contents. Surface water samples were also collected from the tailing pond and ash pond of the mine, as well as in the seepage from the ash pond, where a part of the effluent flows into the Khangal river. The major chemical compositions of river and surface waters were found to vary slightly with water flow. The river water is Ca–HCO3-dominated in the upstream of the Erdenet and Gavil Rivers and ash pond; Ca–SO4-dominated in the tailing pond and seepage from the ash pond; and Ca–HCO3–SO4-dominated downstream of the Erdenet and Khangal Rivers. Both river and surface water exhibited a significant diatom content and the dissolved organic matter mainly comprise of fulvic acid-like materials, protein-like materials and microbial materials.
Analysis of the correlation between vegetation greenness and climate variable trends is important in the study of vegetation greenness. Our study used Normalized Difference Vegetation Index-3rd generation data from the Advanced Very High-Resolution Radiometer - Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (AVHRR-GIMMS NDVI3g), land cover data from the Climate Change Initiative (CCI-LC), and climate data from the Climatic Research Unit global time series (CRU TS) of climate variables (temperature and precipitation, solar radiation) over the past 33 years. First, we estimated the overall trends for vegetation greenness and climate variables over five time periods. Second, we subjected the data to correlation, regression, and residual analyses to detect correlations between vegetation greenness and different climate variables. Third, we extracted trends and correlation results by primary land cover types for each climate zone. Our study was focused at the global scale, and findings indicate that the largest decreasing trend of vegetation greenness and grasslands occurred in the mid-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere and in parts of South America, Africa, Saudi Arabia, and south and northeast Asia. In particular, the cold climatic zones of forest (36.6%), cropland (36.6%), and grassland (14.1%) suffered significant decline in vegetation greenness. Anthropogenic activities are mainly responsible for declining vegetation greenness particularly in northern Africa, central and western Asia. However, residual analysis shows an increase in vegetation greenness in some parts of western Europe, southern Australia, and the northern part of South America. The study also identified temperature and precipitation as the main factors responsible for controlling vegetation growth. Hot-spot areas with the largest temperature increases were found in the Amazon, Central America, southern Greenland, east Africa, south-east Asia, and other areas. However, temperatures decreased in the western part of South America, Angola, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. Precipitation decreased the most from March to May over most parts of the world with high correlation (r = 0.88) in Russia Canada, northeast Asia, and central Africa. In general, climate factors were the principal drivers of the variation in vegetation greenness globally in recent years.
Grasslands are one of the most widely distributed land cover vegetation types across the globe. They play a significant role in developing animal husbandry, protecting biodiversity, maintaining soil and water, and keeping ecological balance. Estimating grassland production, a fundamental variable in grassland resource management, is helpful to measure grassland productivity and diagnose its health status. In recent years, the combination of remote sensing and ground measurements into models has become an important method of estimating grassland production. Normally, large number of measurements are required for remote sensing modeling. Mongolia is an example of a traditional grassland animal husbandry country with the largest per capita grassland area in the world and is also part of the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor under the“Belt and Road”initiative. Constrained by multiple factors of overseas sampling, it is usually difficult to obtain sufficient, accurate, and evenly distributed production samples. Thus, the accuracy of estimation models will be affected. Until now, there is still no effective solutions to get more samples. In this study, a 200-kilometer buffer
The aim of the present study was to evaluate human health and potential ecological risk assessment in the ger district of Ulaanbaatar city, Mongolia. To perform these risk assessments, soil samples were collected based on reference studies that investigated heavy element distribution in soil samples near the ger area in Ulaanbaatar city. In total, 42 soil samples were collected and 26 heavy metals were identified by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) methods. The measurement results were compared with the reference data in order to validate the soil contamination level. Although there was a large difference between the measurement results of the present and reference data, the general tendency was similar. Soil contamination was assessed by pollution indexes such as geoaccumulation index and enrichment factor. Mo and As were the most enriched elements compared with the other elements. The carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic risks to children exceeded the permissible limits, and for adults, only 12 out of 42 sampling points exceeded the permissible limit of noncarcinogenic effects. According to the results of the ecological risk assessment, Zn and Pb showed from moderate to considerable contamination indexes and high toxicity values for ecological risk of a single element. The Cr and As ranged as very high ecological risk than that of the other measured heavy metals.
Land degradation is an important environmental problem facing the world. “Land Degradation Neutrality” is one of the core indicators in the 15th goal of the “United Nations Sustainable Development Goals” for 2030. Mongolia is an important country for global land degradation. The increasingly serious land degradation has caused a direct impact on the ecosystem of the entire Mongolian plateau. We analyzed the patterns of land degradation and restoration during 1990–2010 and 2010–2015 and determined the driving forces behind the variations, by using fine resolution land cover data for the first time in Mongolia. The results showed that the spatial distribution of newly increased land degradation and restoration have a strong transitional nature. For the past 25 years, the trend of land change in Mongolia was dominated by land degradation. However, land degradation was accompanied by ongoing restoration of some land areas, and the capacity for land restoration has been gradually improved. This study discovers a series of typical land degradation and restoration regions and provides an interpretation of the driving forces in these areas. The joint effects of natural and socioeconomic factors have been found to result in land degradation and restoration in different regions.
Urbanization is a major global development. At present, more than half of the world population lives in urban areas, i.e., cities. One of the fundamental requirements of citizens is safe and sufficient drinking water. The premises for water security are adequate water management and governance. In this study, we determine priorities for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and assess the governance capacities of different organizations to address IWRM in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of the landlocked Asian country Mongolia. We apply the City Blueprint Approach (CBA), a diagnosis tool, to assess IWRM in Ulaanbaatar city, Mongolia. The overall score, the Blue City Index (BCI), is 2.3 points for Ulaanbaatar, which categorizes the city as wasteful. Flood risk and economic pressure have a great impact on the water sector in Ulaanbaatar city. In particular, Ulaanbaatar’s waste water treatment (WWT) can be improved. Often, only primary and a small portion of secondary WWT is applied, leading to large-scale pollution. Water consumption and infrastructure leakages are high due to the lack of environmental awareness and infrastructure maintenance. Operation cost recovery is not sufficient to sustain urban water services in Ulaanbaatar. Water governance and more specifically monitoring, evaluation and statutory compliance are among the factors that need to be addressed.
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Mongolia is in the hinterland of the Mongolian Plateau, which has a varied, fragile, and sensitive geographical environment. Understanding its land cover pattern and change is of great significance for the resources, environment, ecology, and sustainable development of the Mongolia Plateau and Northeast Asia. In this study, land cover products of Mongolia in 1990 and 2010 were obtained via Landsat thematic mapper remote sensing images using an object-oriented classification method. The overall classification accuracies were 82.26% and 92.34%, respectively. Based on the products, the land cover patterns of Mongolia in 2010 and the land cover changes from 1990 to 2010 were analyzed. The spatial pattern presented an obvious regional difference and a land cover type transition from forests, real steppes, and desert steppes to barren from north to south. The provinces with the highest grassland and forest cover were Dornod in Eastern Mongolia and Selenge in Northern Mongolia. From 1990 to 2010, the area of forest, real steppe, cropland, and sand presented a decreasing trend and decreased by 27337.47, 24071.44, 5256.6, and 3868.16 km2, respectively. The area of meadow steppe, desert steppe, bare land, and desert showed an increasing trend and increased by 2943.32, 27815.71, 27721.03, and 2110.26 km2. Our results indicate that the vegetative cover of Mongolia showed a decreasing trend, and the desertification was severe. These changes could be attributed to a combination of climate change, increased livestock grazing and natural disasters, socioeconomic shifts, and exhaustive exploitation of natural resources.
