Flood Defense and Water/Sediment Management—With Particular Reference to The Yellow River - River Dynamics and Integrated River Management - page 349

The Yellow River basin is one of the thirstiest areas in China and the economic development is plagued
by more and more serious water shortages. All provinces have tried to use as much water as they can, which
resulted in conflict between areas and provinces. The use of water resources needs central government
coordination. Because the whole area of the Yellow River valley suffers from water shortage, the central
government worked out an allocation scheme for use of the water resources in 1987. The quotas of water
resources for the 11 provinces are listed in Table 6.3.

T able 6.3 Allocation of the Yellow River Water Resources

Water consumption in the 1990s
(billion m 3 )
Qinghai 1.41
Sichuan 0.04
Gansu 3.04 1.76
Ningxia 4.00 3.70
Inner Mongolia 5.86 6.00
Shanxi 3.30 2.50
Shaanxi 4.81 2.00
Henan 5.54 3.50
Shandong 7.00 8.00
Hebei and Tianjin 2.00 0.50
Total 37.00 27.96
Note : The central government adjusted the quota in 1995 allowing the provinces to use 120% of the quota in wet years
but only 80% in dry years

Quota (billion m 3 ) Provinces and autonomous regions

It is obvious that except for Shandong province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region the water
consumption of most provinces and autonomous regions in the 1990s were less than the allocation quotas.
It can be foreseen that water consumption of the upstream provinces and autonomous regions will
increase following the development of the economy and increase in the ability to withdrawing water.
The allocation scheme was made based on the long-term average annual runoff of 58 billion m 3 in the
whole Yellow River watershed. The allocation scheme has not worked well because not so much water
was available while water demands of these provinces were more in dry years and increased water was
available but less water was needed in wet years. Much less water was released from upstream reservoirs
as the lower reaches was thirsty in dry years. The lower reach channel becomes completely dry from March
to July during the 1990s. It is necessary to work out a more sophisticated allocation scheme in which the
cases of dry and wet years must be taken into consideration.

6.3.2 A Case Study—the Yellow River Delta

6.3.2.1 The Yellow River Delta
The Yellow River Basin is too big to discuss all its water resources problems. To present more details of
typical water resources problems the Yellow River delta in the mid 1990s is used as a case study. The
location of the Yellow River Delta is shown in Fig. 6.1. It is located in the north-east part of Shandong
Province. The majority of the delta is administrated by the city of Dongying, as shown in Fig. 6.21.
Dongying is composed of 3 counties and 2 districts, namely, the Guangrao County, Kenli County, and
Lijin County, and the Dongying District and the Hekou District. Since the Yellow River changed its
course from the Huaihe River to the present river course in 1855, the main part of the course—upstream
from the Lijin Hydrological Station—has been stabilized, but the most downstream part of the channel in