Abstract: Lakes are important water resources for many aspects of people’s life and production and socio-economic development in north‐west China,and the dynamic changes of lake systems will lead to a series of ecological and environmental problems,but less attention has been paid to the problem of lake changes in arid areas.In this paper,remote sensing and GIS techniques,spatial analysis,continuous wave‐let analysis and principal component analysis are used to explore the dynamic changes of typical lakes in Yinchuan Plain over the past 30years and to reveal the influence of key factors such as meteorological factors,human activities and Yellow River irrigation on the evolution of lakes,taking Yinchuan Plains,a water scarce area,as the study area in northwestern China.The results show that the lake area of Yinchuan Plains showed an obvious decreasing trend from 1990 to 2020,and the lake area decreased from 92 to 81 km~2.The number of lakes in Yinchuan Plain was drastically reduced due to the water system connection project and the large-scale merging of small lakes,but the num‐ber of lakes only helped to indicate the dynamic changes of lakes in Yinchuan Plains,and the decreasing trend of lake area and number indi‐cate that the Yinchuan Plain of lake hydrology and ecological functions are facing threats.The statistical analysis shows that the average tem‐perature and annual rainfall from 1990 to 2020 showed a slight increasing trend,while the water extraction and consumption by urban resi‐dents,the total amount of Yellow River diversion and the total amount of Yellow River discharge show a gradually decreasing trend,which has some influence on the dynamic change of lake areas in Yinchuan Plains.The attribution analysis shows that the meteorological factors,i.e.,temperature and precipitation,have less influence on the dynamic change of lake areas in Yinchuan Plains,and the amount of Yellow River irrigation is the main factor leading to the decrease in lake area in Yinchuan Plains.This paper can provide a scientific basis for the utilization of water resources in the lakes of Yinchuan Plains,ecological protection of the arid areas and effective development of urban economy.