Climate and human battle for dominance over the Yellow River's sediment discharge: From the Mid-Holocene to the Anthropocene

Wu, Xiao; Wang, Houjie; Bi, Naishuang; Saito, Yoshiki; Xu, Jingping; Zhang, Yong; Lu, Taian; Cong, Shuai; Yang, Zuosheng

doi:10.1016/j.margeo.2020.106188

Cited by 63 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Reconstructed sediment discharge shows a substantial increase from ca. AD 1000 (Wu et al, 2020), corresponding to the increasing population load in the Chinese Loess Plateau (Fig. 6B).…”

Section: Role Of Climate Changes and River Management In The Centennimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reconstructed sediment discharge shows a substantial increase from ca. AD 1000 (Wu et al, 2020), corresponding to the increasing population load in the Chinese Loess Plateau (Figure 6b). In order to keep up with the aggravating channel siltation (Figure 6c), the levee was heightened progressively and a super-elevated channel belt was formed eventually (Chen et al, 2011); (2) Improper river management.…”

Section: Role Of Climate Changes and River Management In The Centennimentioning

confidence: 99%

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A 2000-year documentary record of levee breaches on the lower Yellow River and their relationship with climate changes and human activities

Pan

et al. 2020

The Holocene

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The Yellow River floodplain represents a fertile landmass that contributes significantly to human welfare and thus has been colloquially known as the birthplace of Chinese civilization. The sediment-laden nature of the Yellow River gave rise to a super-elevated channel belt, which is prone to failure particularly in the summer months when excessive precipitation occurs, resulting in cataclysmic floods traditionally regarded as “China’s Sorrow.” Therefore, a deeper understanding of levee breach frequency in this area is especially important for the assessment of socio-economic risk of levee breaches associated with future climate changes. To better understand the nature, evolution, and driving mechanisms of levee breaches on the lower Yellow River, it is necessary to place the instrumental data within a longer time framework. Here, we retrieve past information about levee breaches on the lower Yellow River since AD 11 from various documentary sources such as official histories of China. We evaluated each line of descriptions and narratives about the location, timing, and nature of each event in these documents, ending up with a detailed timeline of levee breaches on the lower Yellow River during the last 2000 years on an annual time scale. Our results reveal remarkable variations in the frequency of levee breaches superimposed on a long-term increasing trend. In addition to climate changes, the iterative embankment-siltation-breaching process caused a feedback: more breaches result in much more channel siltation, which in turn leads to even more breaches. The enhanced farming in the Loess Plateau played a pivotal role in the formation and operation of this positive feedback. Our findings may not only help improve the assessment of socio-economic risk of levee breaches associated with future climate changes, but also provide consulting information for hydraulic engineering and infrastructural designs in the lower Yellow river area.

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“…Reconstructed sediment discharge shows a substantial increase from ca. AD 1000 (Wu et al, 2020), corresponding to the increasing population load in the Chinese Loess Plateau (Fig. 6B).…”

Section: Role Of Climate Changes and River Management In The Centennimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Role Of Climate Changes and River Management In The Centennimentioning

confidence: 99%

A 2000-year documentary record of levee breaches on the lower Yellow River and their relationship with climate changes and human activities

Pan

et al. 2020

The Holocene

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“…2b), and although the grain size of suspended sediment was relatively elevated, the sediment load decreased to a remarkable 7.7  10 6 t (Fig. 2c), which is the lowest since records began in 1950 and even lower than the pristine level of 7000 cal yr BP (Wu et al, 2020b). Furthermore, as a consequence of the declining fine-grained sediment export from the reservoir, particulate organic carbon declined from 4.1  10 11 g in 2012 to 0.4  10 11 g in 2015 (Ran et al, 2013;Xue et al, 2017).…”

Section: Sustainability Of the Wsrsmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Hence, the only source of sediment delivery to the sea from 2015 to 2017 was the downstream river bed. Combined with sediment coarsening of the lower riverbed, the material flux of the lower Yellow River to its delta fell to 35 × 10 6 m 3 (Figure 2b), and although the grain size of suspended sediment was relatively elevated, the sediment load decreased to a remarkable 7.7 × 10 6 t (Figure 2c), which is the lowest since records began in 1950 and even lower than the pristine level of 7,000 cal year BP (Wu, Wang, Bi, Saito, et al, 2020). Furthermore, as a consequence of the declining fine‐grained sediment export from the reservoir, particulate organic carbon declined from 4.1 × 10 11 g in 2012 to 0.4 × 10 11 g in 2015 (Ran et al, 2013; Xue et al, 2017).…”

Section: Sustainability Of the Wsrsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Can Reservoir Regulation Along the Yellow River Be a Sustainable Way to Save a Sinking Delta?

Syvitski

et al. 2020

Earth's Future

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 The impact of reservoir regulation along the Yellow River on delta evolution was systematically evaluated  The man-made experiment through reservoir regulation along the Yellow River did mitigate delta erosion by scouring the lower river bed  With sediment coarsening of lower riverbed, bed scouring through reservoir regulation is not a sustainable way to nourish delta lobe Abstract Today's deltas are impacted negatively by 1) accelerated subsidence (e.g. from ground fluid extraction), 2) global eustatic sea-level rise, and 3) decreased sediment supply, which increasingly starves these landforms of sediment necessary to sustain their footprint. This growing vulnerability threatens many mega cities that have developed due to the rich resources offered by deltas, and therefore urgently calls for efforts to maintain sustainability. The Yellow River of China is classic example of such a landform under threat and which requires human intervention to maintain its resilience. Since 2002, the Yellow River Conservancy Commission has enacted an annual water and sediment regulation scheme (WSRS) by coordinated operation of three large reservoirs in the main stream. Here we evaluate the efficiency and sustainability of this man-made experiment on delta evolution. The impulsive delivery of muds and sands, within ~20 day intervals (averaged duration of the WSRS), did indeed move the present Yellow River delta from a destructive phase to an accretion phase. With continuous scouring, however, the downstream riverbed erosion efficiency has decreased, due to coarsening of surface bed material sediment. Concomitantly, sediment delivery has decreased, resulting in the present delta once again entering an erosive (destructive) phase, since 2014. From a perspective of delta restoration, the WSRS on the Yellow River is effective but potentially unsustainable. Restoring delta resilience necessitates ©2020 American Geophysical Union. All rights reserved. an enhanced, coordinated effort, relying upon new sciences advances, rather than simply assuming channel scour will address the sediment deficit of the delta.

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“…Boix-Fayos et al (2008) applied the WATEM-SEDEM model to the Rogativa catchment of Spain and showed that check dams reduced the sediment load by approximately 77% without land use changes. Xu et al (2013) explored the interception benefit of check dams in the Yanhe River watershed and revealed that the proportional reduction in sediment reached from 34.6-48.0% in the rainy season (1984)(1985)(1986)(1987) and increased to between 79.4 and 85.5% from 2006-2008. Currently, over the past six decades, the sediment concentration of the Yellow River has decreased substan-tially (Wu et al, 2020), and the main tributaries in the middle reaches of the Yellow River have reported that sediment load has decreased rapidly (Gao et al, 2017;Rustomji et al, 2008;Yue et al, 2014). Hence, it is particularly important to understand the driving factors and mechanisms behind the changes in sediment load, which is also a prerequisite for sustainable watershed management (Montgomery, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying the effects of land use changes and check dams on sediment yield in a watershed of the Loess Plateau, China

Zhang

She

Huang

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Reforestation and check dam construction have been progressively implemented on the Loess Plateau for several decades. However, it is still unclear how the two major sediment control strategies affect soil erosion and sediment yield in a large watershed. A combination of field investigation and model simulation was employed to quantitatively identify the impacts of the two measures on soil erosion and sediment yield in the Kuye River watershed. Significant land use changes, with the conversion of arable land and bare land to vegetation cover and construction land, occurred in the study watershed from 1987 to 2016. In addition, 306 key dams were built in the watershed, with a total storage capacity of 316.64 Mm3, according to the statistical data of 2011. Hot spot analysis showed that the high-risk regions for soil erosion and sediment yield were mainly concentrated on the periphery of Shenmu County and the outlet of the watershed. The simulation results showed that the land use changes from 1987 to 2016 remarkably reduced sediment yield by 51.14% without considering the action of check dams. In the 1987 scenario, the sediment yield was reduced by 50.44% when considering the action of check dams compared with the yield that was estimated without consideration of check dams. Under the combined effect of the two factors, the sediment yield decreased by 73.91% in 2016. More attention should be paid to check dams, and corresponding measures should be taken to protect them, especially in the flood period.

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Climate and human battle for dominance over the Yellow River's sediment discharge: From the Mid-Holocene to the Anthropocene

Cited by 63 publications

References 40 publications

A 2000-year documentary record of levee breaches on the lower Yellow River and their relationship with climate changes and human activities

A 2000-year documentary record of levee breaches on the lower Yellow River and their relationship with climate changes and human activities

Can Reservoir Regulation Along the Yellow River Be a Sustainable Way to Save a Sinking Delta?

Identifying the effects of land use changes and check dams on sediment yield in a watershed of the Loess Plateau, China

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