Managing Yellow River Watershed Development and Agricultural Use to Reduce the Environmental Impacts of Flooding, Soil Erosion, Siltation and Pollution

Abstract

The Yellow River flows from the west to the east of China, making a large curve through its northern provinces. As the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world, it passes through nine Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, and Shangdong. The primary objective is to assess the long-term environmental impacts of Yellow River watershed development and agricultural use on flooding, soil erosion, siltation, and pollution. The destruction of forests has turned many grasslands and woodlands into deserts, resulting in the exposure of thick loess. The Yellow River carries an average of 1.6 billion tons of sediment annually. Severe pollution has made one-third of China’s Yellow River unusable due to factory discharges and sewage from fast-expanding cities. Due to the global changes generated by floods, such as soil erosion and sediment transport, the development of strategic plans for sustainable watershed management has become an urgent need. However, to achieve this, one of the most important things is to first understand the mechanisms behind these changes. Aiming to properly reduce the environmental impacts of flooding, soil erosion, siltation and pollution, this article describes the management actions for the Yellow River watershed evolution. This paper can serve as a very good reference for similar research studies in the field.