Spatiotemporal Evolution and Driving Mechanism of Aerosol Optical Depth in the Ebinur Lake Basin

: Aerosol optical depth (AOD) describes the attenuation of light by aerosols and reflects the degree of regional air pollution to some extent. This study was based on the data from the long-term sequence MOD09A1 from 2000 to 2015 and the generation of a lookup table using the deep blue algorithm (DB) to perform AOD remote sensing estimation on the Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI data from the Ebinur Lake Basin to analyze the temporal and spatial variation characteristics of AOD in the Ebinur Lake Basin and to perform an AOD prediction and factor contribution ranking using the random forest model (RF) combined with environmental variables. The results showed that:① AOD of Ebinur Lake Basin has significant seasonal variation characteristics, and the AOD values were spring (0.414) > summer (0.390) > autumn (0.287), with the largest variation in spring. ② The AOD average of the Ebinur Lake Basin was 0.374, and the interannual variation as a whole showed an upward trend. However, the AOD increased rapidly during 2010-2015, with an interannual increase of 32.32%, which indicated increasing air pollution in the basin over the past 15 years, especially the past five years. ③ The spatial distribution of AOD in the Ebinur Lake Basin was stepped up from the north to the south of Lake Ebinur. In this area, the pollution in Jinghe County was the most prominent, and the AOD value reached 0.483. ④ The RF model had a good predictive effect on AOD, R2=0.866, RMSE=0.042, and evapotranspiration had the most significant effect on AOD in the Ebinur Lake basin.