The lake-level changes of Lop Nur over the past 2000 years and its linkage to the decline of the ancient Loulan Kingdom

Lop Nur, Xinjiang Province, China Lop Nur has been a vast playa which was a historic lake in eastern Tarim Basin, northwest China. The lake's catchment played a significant role in the development of oasis states in the early Common Era, such as the ancient Loulan Kingdom. However, the history of lake dynamics remains unclear, and its potential linkage to the decline of Loulan Kingdom has been not well-examined. This paper aims to reconstruct the lake-level changes in Lop Nur over the last 2000 years using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of lacustrine and aeolian sediments, and radiocarbon (14C) dating of ancient bio-remains. Furthermore, the relationships between Lop Nur' fluctuation and the decline of ancient Loulan Kingdom were discussed The results suggest that Lop Nur once covered an area more than 11, 602 km2 and that lake-level reduced gradually during 360–470 C.E. Subsequently, the lake experienced a few stages of lake-level fluctuation which never reached the upper-most shorelines. Also, the historical changes in the lake level were temporal coincided with the ancient Loulan Kingdom's collapse, showing that the dynamics of hydrological conditions in catchment may have a direct influence on the fall of human settlement in drylands. •A history of Lake Lop Nur was revealed and the lake area of 11602 km2 was measured.•The lacustrine deposits of West Lake truncate the closed shorelines of East Lake.•Lake Lop Nur exhibited three major stages of water level.•Disappeared Lop Nur was temporally correlative with the demise of Loulan Kingdom.