Spatiotemporal Patterns and Environmental Effects of Population Scale Change and Land-Use Evolution in the Tarim Basin

Population size change is an important driving force in the evolution of land use and desertification in arid and semiarid areas. The relationship between population size change and land-use change was analyzed using a multi-scale system at the prefecture and township levels. The indirect effect of population size change on PM10 emissions from sandstorms was also discussed. The results were as follows: (1) From 2000 to 2024, population density in the Tarim Basin continued to increase and became increasingly concentrated, forming a spatial pattern of “tower elevation, desert belt formation, and corps jump.” Population growth was highly coordinated with the expansion of cultivated land and construction land and the contraction of bare land at the regional scale. (2) The effect of population changes on land use showed significant spatial non-stationarity, with a pattern of “belt around desert, different from east to west, and heterogeneous from north to south.” The correlation intensity gradually increased from the desert hinterland to the marginal oasis and reached its peak in the oasis town belt. With the “Kashgar–Aksu–Korla” oasis chain as the main axis, the influence showed gradient differentiation toward the desert transition area. Population growth and contraction corresponded to “development-leading” and “recovery-leading” types of land-use transformation, respectively. (3) Bare land and grassland were the most sensitive links in population–land-use coupling. Bare land showed the pattern of “increasing population and increasing nakedness,” and its sharp decrease was concentrated in towns experiencing population outflow, driven by mining, desertification, vegetation degradation, and other third-party processes. Grassland showed the reverse linkage of “reducing population and increasing grass, increasing population and decreasing grass,” and grassland in population outflow areas was undergoing natural recovery. (4) Population size change and dust-storm PM10 formed two indirect transmission paths in opposite directions through the adjustment of land-use structure. They had a deep impact on regional dust emissions through changes in land cover. Population scale changes shaped the land-use pattern through asymmetric paths such as “increasing population and increasing bare land, decreasing population and increasing grass, and increasing population and occupying farmland.” They indirectly affected regional dust and the atmospheric environment through sensitive land types such as bare land and grassland.