The renewability of water resources and its quantification in the Yellow River basin, China

Abstract

Abstract:The drying-up events in the lower reaches of the Yellow River during the 1990s, which were the most serious problem of water resources issues in China, initiated this study of the concept of water resources renewability in the Yellow River basin. The problem of renewability linked with hydrological process impacted by climate change and human activity is addressed. A quantitative method was developed to analyse causes and propose countermeasures to improve renewability of water resources. The magnitude of renewability change in time and space within the river system can be represented using this method. According to the analysis using an observation data set, it is shown that the renewability of water resources of the Yellow Rive basin has had a significant declining trend since the 1950s. In particular, the renewability indicator in the downstream reaches was reduced to 0Ð2 during a bad situation during the 1990s. Using the renewability assessment, feasible strategies can be analysed and suggested.

Analysis of long‐term water balance in the source area of the Yellow River basin

“…To estimate the open channel flows in the river network of a large-scale catchment, the routing of stream flow was set to a constant velocity (Ma et al, 2000). Previous studies have used velocities from 0Ð2-1Ð5 m s 1 in river-routing models (Ma et al, 2003;Xia et al, 2004). In the present study, we assumed a constant velocity of 0Ð6 m s 1 for the Yellow River basin with a 0Ð1 ð 0Ð1°grid scale.…”

“…However, river discharges in the lower reaches of the Yellow River basin have decreased continuously (Xia and Chen, 2001;Ren et al, 2002;Chen et al, 2003;Liu and Zheng, 2004;Yang et al, 2004;Xu, 2005). Consequently, drying in the lower reaches has occurred since 1972 (Liu and Xia, 2004;Xia et al, 2004;Yang et al, 2004). The most serious drying situation occurred in 1997 when the main river dried up near the mouth for 226 days, and a no-flow zone extended 704 km upstream (Xia and Chen, 2001; Yang * Correspondence to: Yoshinobu Sato, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, 457-4 Kamigamo-motoyama, Kita-ku, Kyoto 603-8047, Japan.…”

“…E-mail: s yoshi@chikyu.ac.jp et al, 2004). Under insufficient water flows, extremely concentrated sediment loads accumulate in the lower reaches, raising the level of the river bed and increasing the threat of flooding (Liu and Zheng, 2002;Yu, 2002;Liu and Xia, 2004;Xia et al, 2004;Wang et al, 2005).…”

“…Irrigation accounts for about 90% of water consumption in the Yellow River basin (Liu and Zheng, 2002;Chen et al, 2003;Cai and Rosegrant, 2004;Xia et al, 2004). In addition, with the rapid growth of industrial and local water use, the demand for water resources is increasing rapidly (Cai and Rosegrant, 2004;Xu, 2005).…”

Examination of the water budget in upstream and midstream regions of the Yellow River, China

“…Reports have described the climatic, hydrological, and hydrochemical changes in the characteristics of the Yellow River basin based on historical data (Chen et al, 2003;Liu and Zheng, 2004;Xia et al, 2004). However, 619 100E 104E 108E 112E 116E 100E 104E 108E 112E 116E 96E Longmen B a y a n H a r S h a n A n y e m a q e n S h a n Q il ia n S h a n Q in lin g Sh an Figure 2.…”