Abstract: The Fourlake Area located in the Middle Reach of the Yangtze River is very important in lake distribution in Jianghan Plain, and it had occupied large area in the historical period with the main body of the Yunmeng Swamp. As the RiverLake relationship changed and human activities increased, the area of lakes changed quickly and especially in the twentieth century. In this paper, the centenary changes of the area in the Fourlake Area were studied by interpreting on the water resources map，relief map and images of remote sensing supported by GIS. The results show that the area and amount of the lakes have been increasing since 1920's, in 1950's the area and amount of the lakes arrived to the highest; from 1950's to now, it decreased and intensively decreased during the period of 1950′s to 1970′s. This change was caused both by natural evolution and human impacts, with the human activities taking the leading position. Facing the present situation of the decrease, this paper proposes suggestions about the development, utilization and protection of lake resources.

Key words: RS/GIS, the Fourlake Area, change of lake surface