A Remarkable Change of Ecosystems in the Yellow River Basin

摘要

With the increasing of population and the developing of economy, the limited water resources of the Yellow River Basin (YRB) have been heavy stresses on the society since last decades. As a result, the flow of the Yellow River has been drying-up frequently in its lower reaches. Such situation has become more austerity during 1990s. Based on mutual interaction between human activities and hydrological regimes, the author did an analysis to estimate the major impacts of human activities on river ecosystems, society, economy and the environment. Following aspects resulting from drying up watercourse are the major issues to be expected: (1) to result in an increase of flooding threat and damage in lower reaches of the Yellow River, (2) to reduce purification capacity of river courses, (3) to cause degradation of ecological conditions in river estuary and delta wetlands, (4) to influence water supply of river to agricultural, industrial and domestic sectors. According to above-mentioned major impacts, the author analyzed the reasons of drying-up the lower Yellow River channel: (1) Naturally, water is insufficient in the river basin in which most areas are semiarid and arid regions, (2) Under intensive water resource development, the amount of water withdrawals has exceeded the availability of the river' s natural runoff, (3) Managerially, water allocation to the provinces along the river courses is inadequate in terms of poor controlling water withdrawals. Finally, the author discussed and suggested the countermeasures to solve the problems.