Long-term InSAR and streamflow recession analysis reveal accelerated permafrost degradation in the mining area of the Qilian Mountains

Chang, Tian; Yi, Yonghong; Furuya, Masato; Jiang, Huiru; Che, Tao; Ran, Youhua; Liu, Lin; Li, Rongxing

doi:10.5194/tc-20-3933-2026

Articles | Volume 20, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-3933-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-3933-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 7

Research article

|

17 Jul 2026

Research article |

| 17 Jul 2026

Long-term InSAR and streamflow recession analysis reveal accelerated permafrost degradation in the mining area of the Qilian Mountains

Tian Chang, Yonghong Yi, Masato Furuya, Huiru Jiang, Tao Che, Youhua Ran, Lin Liu, and Rongxing Li

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-3933-2026-supplement

Data sets

European Space Agency Copernicus Global Digital Elevation Model https://doi.org/10.5069/G9028PQB

Distribution data of underground ice in permafrost regions of Qilian Mountains (2013-2015) Y. Sheng https://doi.org/10.11888/Geocry.tpdc.270933

Dataset of Heihe integrated observatory network: automatic weather station of Yakou station, 2022 S. Liu et al. https://doi.org/10.11888/Atmos.tpdc.300652

ERA5-Land hourly data from 1950 to present Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.e2161bac

Short summary

We combined a long-term surface deformation dataset derived from multi-frequency Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar with streamflow recession analysis to assess potential destruction effects of historic mining on permafrost in the Qilian Mountains. Results show that post-mining surface deformation intensifies alongside marked recession slowdown, signaling permafrost thaw. These findings highlight long-lasting effects of human disturbance on permafrost degradation under regional warming.