1. Yellow River Water Allocation
and Environmental Flow Management
Sun Yangbo
Yellow River Conservancy Commission

2. River Length (km)
1. Nile 6670
2. Amazon 6436
3. Yangtze 6300
4. Mississippi 6021
5. Yellow River 5464
6. Mekong 4880
2005/10 2

3. Facts and Numbers
YRCC HQ
basin area 790,000 km2
river length 5,464 km
elevation drop 4,480 m
average rainfall 450 mm
population 115 million
total water
58 BCM
resources
2005/10 per capita water 550 m3 3

4. Challenges for River Basin Management
Floods Water Scarcity
Water pollution Soil Erosion/Sediment

5. Framework to Sustainable River Basin Management
Mission Maintain Healthy Life of the Yellow River
Flood Flow Pollution Sediment
Indicator safety regime control mgt
Actions 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Real Digital Scaled
Tool Box Yellow Yellow Yellow
River River River
5

6.  1 × Ultimate target
 “Keeping the Yellow River Healthy”
 4 × Criteria (“the 4-nos”)
 No embankment breaching
 No river running dry
 No water pollution beyond standard
 No riverbed rising further
 9 × Actions
 Take measures to reduce sediment inflow to the Yellow River
 Manage effectively the water resources utilization of the Yellow River basin and its
related regions
 Strengthen the study on water transfer plans to increase the water resources of the
Yellow River
 Establish water and sediment regulation system
 Work out a scientific and reasonable general plan for the control and management of
the lower river course
 Create favourable hydrological process to mitigate the shrinking of the main channel
 Meet water demands to maintain river itself cleaning capacity
 Carry out Yellow River Delta management to reduce seawater impact to the lower reach
 Maintain the ecological system sustainable in the Yellow River delta

7. 1998: Call for Environmental Flow Management Program
New Challenges: Political Decision and public
River Runs Dry since consensus
1970s  Laws and policy making
 Public participation
 Water scarcity
Demand of Environmental Flow
 Climate Change
Management
 Economic development
 river flow
 Population growth
 Ecological restoration
 Transboundary river
 Sediments transportation
 Water quality

8. Environmental Flow Management Program 1998-2010
Water allocation and Environmental Flow
 Legal measures, Public Consultation,
 Technical measures
 Water Allocation Scheme 58 bcm=37+21 bcm (EF)
 Remote control and Real time control
 Artificial Floods
 Flushing river sediments
 Flood plain and wetlands restoration
 Improve river morphology and Reduce flood risk
 Ecological restoration

10. Water Quantity and Water Quality
 Continuous river flow restored
 in 1997, river dried for 226 days
 since 1998, the river has flow continuously for 10
years
 Water quality improved
 Legislation of water pollution control
 Pollution reduction and cleaner production Tech.
 Monitoring and supervision enhanced
 Water quality trends of mainstream of the Yellow
River in 2002-2006


11. Riparian Wetlands
 Wetlands
 Comprise of river channel, flood plain, retention basin, lakes, etc.
 The total area of the downstream floodplain about 3544 km2
 The ecological status of the wetlands depend on the fresh water supply
 Wetlands eco-system
 habitat of the fishes and migration birds
万家
寨水
 recovered from the dry up periods 库!

12. Balance of Social and Ecological Benefits
 A river provides social benefits
 Flood control function
 Drought control function
 Water supply function
 Hydro-power function
 Navigation function
 Water quality self-purification function
 Recreation function
 A river can be managed to optimise, or choose a balance of, the:
 Social benefits
 Ecological benefits
 The River Health Index is an important tool to help achieve the
balance

13. River Health Index
Social/economics Environmental
Indicators… Ecology Physical form Hydrology Water quality
Wetland
vegetation
Fish (remote sensing)
Invertebrates
Primary
Vegetation productivity Survey and
Hydraulic modelling
habitat
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