Fig 1.
A general view of the Bortala valley looking to the northwest from the town of Wenquan (A. Betts).
Fig 2.
Differences in seasonal camps in the Wenquan area.
Fig 3.
Transhumant routes among the local herders in Wenquan.
Map created using ArcGIS Pro 2.5.0. Single use licence issued to Meng Qi by ESRI Australia Pty Ltd (Environmental Systems Research Institute). We acknowledge the use of Esri base maps as noted in the image.
Fig 4.
Kazak herders in the Yili Valley migrating to their winter camp at Kazan in Wenquan in mid- November 2016 (P. Jia).
Fig 5.
Transhumance from the summer pastures at Harnur to the autumn camp in the river valley in early September 2018 (D. Cong).
Fig 6.
Modern winter camp at Adunqiaolu with little snow cover on the adjacent pasture.
The camp faces south towards the sun with a small hill behind (P. Jia).
Fig 7.
Wenquan herder Bangba’s summer camp at Big Angji, a high-altitude summer pastureland (2700 m a.s.l.) (P. Jia).
Fig 8.
Traditional spring/autumn campsite for local herders.
The site was abandoned after the herders moved to a newly constructed government funded house with an animal fold in a permanently settled village (P. Jia).
Fig 9.
Intermediate campsite used during the spring–summer transhumance (1800 m. a.s.l.).
The circular dark patch of soil surrounded by a fence is the animal fold. The small log-built hut sees only seasonal use for the herders to stay (P. Jia).
Fig 10.
Location and area of seasonal pastureland in Wenquan: 1. Kazan Winter pasture 2, Adunqiaolu northwest summer pasture, 3. Adunqiaolu northwest core area of summer pasture, 4. Adunqiaolu winter pasture, 5. Core area Adunqiaolu winter pasture, 6. Wenquan spring-autumn pasture, 7. Entire Husta Grassland -summer-spring–autumn, 8. The Centre of Husta-summer-spring-autumn, 9. Harnur summer 1, 10. Harnur summer pasture 2, 11. Xiaowenquan Summer pasture, 12. Sarimu Lake summer pasture. Image created using ArcGIS Pro 2.5.0. Single use licence issued to Meng Qi by ESRI Australia Pty Ltd (Environmental Systems Research Institute). We acknowledge the use of Esri base maps as noted in the image.
Table 1.
Sentinel2 and MODIS data inventory.
Fig 11.
Idealised pastoralist movements based on ethnographic and remote sensing data.
Left y-axis: snow cover in % displayed as a bar diagram distinguishing thin/moderate/thick snow cover. Right y-axis: average NDVI value.