Abstract: A total of 16 quadrants of wetlands and surrounding lands in the mid- and lower reaches of Tarim River were surveyed, and the data about the characteristics of plant communities and environmental factors were collected and counted. By using PCA (principal component analysis) ordination and regression procedure, the distribution patterns of plant communities and the relationships between the characteristics of plant community structure and environmental factors were analyzed. The results showed that the distribution of the plant communities was closely related to soil moisture, salt, and nutrient contents. The accumulative contribution rate of soil moisture and salt contents in the first principal component accounted for 3570%, and that of soil nutrient content in the second principal component reached 25.97%. There were 4 types of habitats for the plant community distribution, i.e., fenny-light salt-medium nutrient, moist-medium salt-medium nutrient, mesophytic-medium salt-low nutrient, and medium xerophyticheavy salt-low nutrient. Along these habitats, swamp vegetation, meadow vegetation, riparian sparse forest, halophytic desert, and salinized shrub were distributed. In the wetlands and surrounding lands of mid- and lower reaches of Tarim River, the ecological dominance of the plant communities was markedly and unitary-linearly correlated with the compound gradient of soil moisture and salt contents. The relationships between species diversity, ecological dominance, and compound gradient of soil moisture and salt contents were significantly accorded to binary-linear regression model.

Key words: Oilfield exploitation, Drainage projects, Environmental risk, Fuzzy comprehensive assessment