PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2010, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (9): 1100-1106.

• Original Articles •

### Modeling the Distribution of Permafrost along a Transportation Corridor from Cetar to Muri in Qinghai Province

LI Jing, SHENG Yu, CHEN Ji, WU Jichun

1. State Key Lahoratoiy of Frozen Soil Engineering, CAREERI, CAS, Lanzhon 730000, China
• Received:2009-07-01 Revised:2010-03-01 Online:2010-09-25 Published:2010-09-25

Abstract:

Taking the lOkm-wide buffer areas along the traffic lines, the Cetar-Muri Railway and the ReshuiJiangoang Road, in Qinghai province as the research areas, this paper studies the distribution patterns of permafrost in the buffer area. Boreholes, which were drilled in the fields and used to determine the existence of perfamost at the drilling points, were the data basis. Based on the 189 boreholes and DEM, effects of longitude, latitude, elevation, solar radiation, aspect，slope and curvature on the distribution of permafrost were evaluated quantitatively through the(orrelation analysis. The results indicated that the macro-scale factors of longitude, latitude, elevation and solar radiation were the major affecting factors. As the spatial scale decreused, slope was another important factor affeoting the distribution of perma frost Therefore, a logistio model, baking longitude, elevation and slope as independent variables, and the occurrenoe probability of permafrost as a dependant variable, was developed to simulate the distribution probability of permafrost in the buffer areas. The modeling results showed that the possible permafrost with probability values ranging from 0.75 to 1 was the major type, accpunting for 65% of the buffer area. The second largest distribution area was the seasonally frozen ground with probability values smaller than 0.5, accpunting for 29% of the buffer area. The third was the possible permafrost type with probability values of 0.5-0.75, accpunting for only 6% of the buffer area.