MEASURES AND WAYS OF DEALING WITH A 'SECONDARY-SUSPENDED RIVER' AND ITS 'HUMP REACHES' IN THE LOWER YELLOW RIVER

摘要

Flowing through the Loess Plateau - the biggest loess plateau in the world, the Yellow River carries large amounts of sediment into the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain and silts the lower channel so that it has long been hung above the ground outside of both banks. In the 20th century, due to operations detaining floods to scour sand and storing clear water while discharging the muddy water of the Sanmenxia Reservoir, a "secondary suspended river" came into being in some reaches. From the 1990s to the early 21st century, both frequency and amount of the Yellow River's floods decreased sharply, causing channel shrinkage and silting, thus the "suspended river" developed further, forming "hump reaches". It needs over-all measures to deal with a "suspended river" and its "hump reaches" such as water and sediment regulation, floodplain controls, river channel training, stabilizing river channels, floodplain training river dredging, etc. At present, dredging technology at home and abroad is in a mature state and has been used in the Yellow River. Therefore, dredging is a simple and effective way of dealing with this situation.