Salt lakes in Qaidam Basin plays an important role in maintaining regional ecological balance and ensuring national economic development. Under the influence of climate warming and humid on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, a series of changes has taken place in the lake pattern in the basin. In order to analyze the change characteristics of salt lake resources in the basin, the Xiao Qaidam Lake (XQL) was taken as the research object. Based on the long time series satellite data, the random forest method was used to extract the range of salt lake and analyze its point-line-surface changes. At the same time, the salinity index was constructed to represent the change of salt lake resource endowment. The results showed that: (1) the area of XQL showed a gradual change characteristic of "slow decrease, slow increase and fast increase" during 1990-2022. The length of shoreline basically increased with the area increasing, and showed a phased change. This trending is obvious after 2016. The cumulative migration distance of the lake's centroid was 2363.49 m until 2022, and the overall migration direction was in northwest. (2) The fluctuation of salinity index decreased from 1990 to 2022, indicating a trend of "dilution". (3) Meteorological data showed that the study area was in a mild transition period of warm and humid, and the comprehensive superposition effect of increasing precipitation, decreasing evaporation and increasing ice. The snow meltwater caused by increasing temperature leaded to the increase of regional water resources, which resulted into lake expansion and "desalination". (4) The expansion and "dilution" of XQL had a significant impact on the social economy and ecological balance. On the one hand, it affected the surrounding infrastructure, and nearly 70 km² area was directly submerged by rapid increasing lake area, including some sections of G315 and G3011 expressway; On the other hand, as a resource-based lake, the potential of mineral resources XQL had declined, and "desalination" might cause the imbalance of lake ecosystem. (5) It suggested that it should appropriately adjust the development and utilization direction of XQL in the future, excavate the visual diversified three-dimensional landscape resources of "snow mountain-desert-salt lake-wetland-highway", and balance the "resource" and "ecological" attributes of the salt lake. This study provides a useful attempt to enrich the perspectives and methods of lake dynamic change research, and the analysis results can provide certain decision-making support for the resource, ecological environment protection, and infrastructure construction of the salt lake in Qaidam Basin.