yellow river flood case study

Great Flood of the Huang-Ho River

The 1887 flood of the Huang-Ho (Yellow River), which flows more than 4,885 kilometers through China, was responsible for some of the most severe flooding in Chinese history. Heavy rainfall unleashed an enormous flood wave, which swelled further as dams burst, inundating more than 15,000 square kilometers. Disease epidemics broke out in the affected areas: in addition to the deaths caused directly by flooding, nearly as many lives were lost due to the ensuing sickness. Estimates of the total number of deaths range from one to two million. Over the centuries, more people have died in flooding along the Yellow River than along all other world rivers combined. Part of the problem lies with the region’s high silt content: millions of tons of yellow mud frequently cause the river to overflow and change course. In its lower reaches, the riverbed has actually become higher than the level of the surrounding countryside. Dams and dikes have been built in order to limit the recurring floods and aid cultivation of the fertile land in the Yellow River valley. However, the river’s thick silt still clogs many of them.

• Pomeranz, Kenneth. “The Transformation of China’s Environment 1500-2000.” In The Environment and World History , edited by Edmund Burke III and Kenneth Pomeranz, 118–165. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

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Study of Yellow River flooding over past 1,000 years shows human activities made flooding worse

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

A team of geologists, paleontologists and environmental scientists from Jiangsu Normal University and the Chinese Academy of Science, working with a colleague from Coastal Carolina University, has found that human attempts to keep the Yellow River in China from flooding over the past 1,000 years only made things worse.

In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes studying river sediments and historical records to learn more about the impact on the river by locals living in the area over the past millennium.

The Yellow River, the second-longest river in China, has played an important role in the history of that country. For thousands of years, people living near the river have used its fertile soil to grow food. But the population also had to contend with occasional flooding, which ruined crops and likely led to starvation for some. Over time, many of the locals began lining parts of the river with mud banks, hoping to keep the river from spilling out and onto crop lands. But such efforts, it turns out, tended to make things worse.

To learn more about the impact of mud-banking and other attempts to prevent flooding, such as channeling, the research team visited several sites along the river and collected sediment samples. They also collected flood records created over time by people living there. By analyzing both sources together, the group was able to create a detailed history of river flooding going back 1,000 years.

The researchers found that prior to humans altering the environment, the Yellow River tended to flood approximately four times every century. But just 6,000 years after humans established farming in the area, the river was flooding 10 times as often.

The researchers found that adding mudbanks next to the river led to an increase in sediment deposits, which lifted the river and made it overflow during heavy rains. They note that such flooding has finally been reduced in the modern era by removing mudbanks and increasing natural vegetation along the river, which helps to reduce the flow of soil into the river during the rainy season.

Journal information: Science Advances

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Successful and sustainable governance of the lower Yellow River, China: A floodplain utilization approach for balancing ecological conservation and development

• Published: 25 June 2021
• Volume 24 , pages 3014–3038, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

• Jinliang Zhang 1 ,
• Yizi Shang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8432-9561 1 , 2 ,
• Meng Cui 1 ,
• Qiushi Luo 1 &
• Ruihai Zhang 1  

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A novel model has been proposed for the methodical development and safe utilization of the lower Yellow River floodplain to provide flood control with a graded standard, sediment deposition in the partitioned zone, and the free exchange of channel runoff and sediment. The wide floodplain, which is located between the dam and the main channel, has been typically divided into three zones: high, tender, and low floodplains. Meanwhile, different ecological construction models have been suggested for each zone. This paper summarizes all related research findings; describes the overall research ideas and methodologies; expounds key issues such as land planning and utilization, sediment prediction and regulation, and multi-dimensional industrial safeguards in the lower Yellow River floodplain; and provides orientation for future research on the ecological development of the lower Yellow River floodplain. This study aims to promote the refinement of the ecological development model for the lower Yellow River floodplain and accelerate the application of research findings regarding land development and utilization of the lower Yellow River floodplain.

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This work was jointly supported by the Yellow River Engineering Consulting Co., Ltd. [Grant No. 2019GS007-WW03/20] and the State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin [Grant No. SKL2020ZY10].

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Jinliang Zhang, Yizi Shang, Meng Cui, Qiushi Luo & Ruihai Zhang

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Zhang, J., Shang, Y., Cui, M. et al. Successful and sustainable governance of the lower Yellow River, China: A floodplain utilization approach for balancing ecological conservation and development. Environ Dev Sustain 24 , 3014–3038 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01593-9

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• Published: 04 July 2019

Yellow River water rebalanced by human regulation

• Yaping Wang 1 , 2 ,
• Wenwu Zhao 1 , 2 ,
• Shuai Wang 1 , 2 ,
• Xiaoming Feng 3 &
• Yanxu Liu 1 , 2  

Scientific Reports volume  9 , Article number:  9707 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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The streamflow of major global rivers changes under the influences of climate change and human activities and varies greatly in different regions. The Yellow River has undergone a dramatic shift during the last six decades. Its streamflow gradually dwindled away and even dried-up severely in the late 20th century, but in recent years it has recovered and remains stable. Comprehensive understanding of the river streamflow change and its driving forces promotes effective water resource management within this complex human-natural system. Here, we develop a runoff identity attribution approach to analyze 61 years of streamflow observations from the Yellow River. We find that between the 1950s and the 1980s, human water consumption contributed more than 90% to streamflow reduction, but from the 1970s onwards, land cover change became the major factor to decrease streamflow. Since 2000, government management schemes have prevented streamflow from declining further and guarantee its stability. Based on the analysis framework we propose, persistent droughts, which are related to abrupt streamflow abatement, may be the most uncontrollable factor in the future. A more resilient management system should be therefore built to grapple with the expected increased frequency of such extreme climate events in the future.

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Introduction.

Streamflow is a major source of water for human consumption, and also the most concise indicator of a basin’s response to climate change and human activities 1 , 2 . Most continental streamflow generally increased during the 20 th century, as the global hydrological cycle intensified, driven by atmospheric variation and land use change 3 , 4 , 5 , but there is uncertainty regarding streamflow trends on the regional scale 6 , 7 . At these scales, spatial heterogeneity and social-ecological interactions make the process of streamflow change more complex 8 , 9 . In general, precipitation and its intensity relating to large-scale atmospheric circulation, and temperature are the major climatic factors causing streamflow change 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , while physical features of landscape and human activities such as urbanization, agricultural development, and water-soil conservation measures also play important roles in altering streamflow 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 . Although there are many researches focusing on regional streamflow change drivers, previous studies pay more attention to one or two aspects. Therefore, holistic analysis of regional streamflow features and mechanisms is required to promote a better understanding of the basin-scale water budget, which is critical for sustainable water resource management 24 .

The Yellow River (YR) (Fig.  1a ), flowing through the arid and semi-arid areas of northern China and sustaining a population of 114 million people 25 , faces an enormous challenge of water shortage, especially in the period of great changes in social-ecological environment 26 , 27 . With the increase of population and development of social economy, there has been significant growth in water consumption, including agricultural, industrial, and domestic water use, along with water facilities during the last six decades 28 , 29 . Serious soil erosion in the Loess Plateau, mainly located in the middle reaches of the YR basin, and high sediment load in the YR have been a major issue for the local population for many years 26 , 30 , 31 , the Chinese Government implements a series of large ecological engineering and invests more than US$8.7 billion 32 to solve this problem. After a long-term water-soil loss control, the Loess Plateau has become greener and the sediment load of the YR has significantly decreased in recent decades, but this decrease is associated with streamflow reduction 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 . Climate factors, such as increasing temperature, decreasing precipitation and changing extreme climate events, also aggravate water scarcity in the YR 37 , 38 , 39 . The streamflow has decreased severely; the lower YR even dried-up completely in the late 20 th century 40 , 41 .

Location of the Yellow River (YR) basin and annual streamflow of the YR in the past six decades. ( a ) The pentagrams represent the control gauging stations of the source regions (SR), upper reaches (UR), middle reaches (MR) and lower reaches (LR), and the crosses represent the main reservoirs on the YR. ( b ) The time series of annual streamflow at Tangnaihai station and Lijin station, the unit of slope is 10 8 m 3 . New (prepared by YW in ArcMap 10.2, https://www.esri.com/zh-cn/arcgis/products/arcgis-pro/resources ).

Lots of studies have taken notice of this phenomenon and there is an agreement on the significant roles of precipitation, human abstraction and water-soil conservation measures such as afforestation in streamflow decrease 28 , 29 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 . However, with great efforts under the government management, water use regime of the Yellow River (YR) was altered after acute dried-up events, and the declining streamflow trend has been reversed immediately 26 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 . In spite of these major changes, there have been few systematic studies focusing on long-term streamflow change in the YR basin and its response to various driving factors in different periods.

The objective of this study is therefore to understand the temporal change and spatial distribution of streamflow in the Yellow River basin, and to quantify the influences of precipitation, potential evapotranspiration, land cover and direct human activities on streamflow change during the last six decades.

General observations and water budget

Streamflow in the Yellow River (YR) estuary has significantly decreased (slope −0.83 mm·yr −2 , p  < 0.001) since 1956, and, in recent years, there has been no significant difference ( p  = 0.28) between the streamflow of the YR estuary and the source regions (Fig.  1b ). At the Tangnaihai gauging station (TNH) at the outlet of the YR source regions, annual streamflow has shown an insignificant change trend (slope −0.33 × 10 8 m 3  yr −2 , p  = 0.16) since 1956, while at the Lijin gauging station (LJ), the control station of the YR estuary, the streamflow fell from 501.15 × 10 8 m 3  yr −1 in the 1960s to 140.75 × 10 8 m 3  yr −1 in the 1990s, and finally increased to 175.20 × 10 8 m 3  yr −1 in the 2010s. This latter value is approximately equal to the value of 195.94 × 10 8 m 3  yr −1 measured at TNH during the 2010s, even though there are 51 major tributaries, each with a catchment area greater than 1,000 km 2 , flowing into the YR between TNH and LJ.

Analysis of the water budget of the region between Tangnaihai gauging station (TNH) and Lijin gauging station (LJ) (see Methods) revealed that its regional streamflow had a significant decline (slope −6.07 × 10 8 m 3  yr −2 , p  < 0.001) during the period 1956–2016. This decline was the result of both increasing human water consumption (slope 2.80 × 10 8 m 3  yr −2 , p  < 0.001), and decreasing natural water yield (slope −3.37 × 10 8 m 3  yr −2 , p  < 0.001). Based on 7-year moving-average annual regional streamflow between TNH and LJ, we divided the past 61 years into four periods covering 1956–1968 (P1), 1969–1985 (P2), 1986–2002 (P3), and 2003–2016 (P4) (Fig.  2a ; Supplementary Fig.  1 ). In this region, natural water yield exceeded human water consumption greatly ( p  < 0.001) during P1. Their gap narrowed but was still significant ( p  < 0.001) in P2, but disappeared, and even reversed for P3 and P4, because water consumption was close to or above water yield between these two stations.

The temporal and spatial distribution of natural water yield and human water consumption in the Yellow River (YR) basin. ( a ) The time series of annual natural water yield and human water consumption. The time series has been divided into four periods according to regional streamflow features. ( b ) Average annual natural water yield and human water consumption in the source regions (SR), upper reaches (UR), middle reaches (MR) and lower reaches (LR) in the past six decades.

In summary, regional streamflow at the two stations roughly balanced twice during two periods in P3 and P4. This balance was first achieved (see Methods, p  = 0.45) during 1986–1996 in P3, because decreasing natural water yield equalled to increasing human consumption. As these trends continued, the balance was lost in 1997, but then recovered ( p  = 0.28) in P4 owing to a halt to the trends and a slight increase of natural water yield. An interesting difference between P3 and P4 was that the drying-up of the lower YR occurred frequently and for increasing number of days in the former period, but no drying-up occurred in the latter period at all (Supplementary Fig.  2 ).

Spatial variations between natural water yield and human water consumption exist in the Yellow River (YR) basin (Fig.  2b ). During 1956–2016, the YR had an average natural water yield volume of 532.82 × 10 8 m 3  yr −1 , with 38.94% coming from the middle reaches (MR), 37.54% being attributed to the source regions (SR), 22.72% to the upper reaches (UR), and only 0.80% to the lower reaches (LR). This difference comes from the various physical features of these sub-regions (Supplementary Table  1 ). The SR, UR and MR all have large catchment areas with a great quantity of water flowing into the river, ratios of their areas to the whole basin are 15.23%, 33.53% and 42.34% respectively. Although the UR is larger than SR in area, it flows through the arid zone of Ulan Buh Desert and Kubuqi Desert where precipitation is low but evaporation is high. As for the LR, its small area is due to uplifted riverbed resulting from heavy sediment of the Loess Plateau. This region has been the watershed between Hai River basin and Huai River basin, and the lower YR has been a suspended river with little catchment.

However, spatial distribution of human water consumption doesn’t match water yield pattern well. Locating in arid and semi-arid regions mostly, agricultural water in the Yellow River (YR) basin accounts for more than 70% of the total human water consumption. Irrigation is the most important mode of agricultural development, especially in upper reaches (UR). Besides farmland within the basin, the lower YR also provides water for irrigation areas in the North China Plain (Supplementary Table  1 ). Accordingly, human water consumption of the source regions (SR), upper reaches (UR), middle reaches (MR) and lower reaches (LR) contributed 0.38%, 44.04%, 22.76% and 32.82% respectively, to the total amount of water consumption, 257.81 × 10 8 m 3  yr −1 , in the whole basin. This mismatch between water yield and consumption is particularly serious in SR and LR, with the available water supply in LR being almost wholly reliant on flow from upstream (95%).

Runoff identity analysis

We attributed regional streamflow change to changes of regional potential evapotranspiration (PET), hydrothermal index (HI), and runoff coefficient (RC) based on runoff identity (see Methods; Fig.  3a ; Supplementary Fig.  3 and Supplementary Table  2 ). The proportional change rate of streamflow in the Yellow River (YR) basin was −2.34% yr −1 , with 96.46% of this change resulting from decreasing RC, and only 3.54% being due to changes in HI and PET. The middle reaches (MR) made the largest contribution to the streamflow decline of the YR (46.75%), with a proportional change rate of −2.02% yr −1 . RC accounted for 90.34% of this change, while HI made up 9.23% and PET only 0.43%. Together the lower reaches (LR) and upper reaches (UR) contributed to more than half of the YR streamflow reduction (26.60% and 23.45%, respectively) and in both cases decreasing RC was again the main driver. The remaining 3.20% of the reduction in the YR was attributed to the source regions (SR) where streamflow dropped at a proportional rate of only −0.10% yr −1 . The proportional rate of decreasing RC in the SR was −0.24% yr −1 , more than twice that of the streamflow, while PET and HI both increased, with proportional rates of 0.09% yr −1 and 0.05% yr −1 respectively.

Contributions of runoff identity factors to annual streamflow change rates. ( a ) Partial annual streamflow change rates due to potential evapotranspiration (PET), hydrothermal index (HI), and runoff coefficient (RC) in the Yellow River (YR), source regions (SR), upper reaches (UR), middle reaches (MR) and lower reaches (LR). ( b ) Partial annual streamflow change rates due to PET, HI, natural runoff coefficient (RC n ) and direct human disturbance (HD) from P1 to P4 (1956–2016), P1 to P2 (1956–1985), P2 to P3 (1969–2002), and P3 to P4 (1986–2016). c , Partial annual streamflow change rates due to PET, HI, RC n and HD between two consecutive years during 1956 and 2016.

These results highlighted the dominant role of runoff coefficient (RC) in controlling the Yellow River (YR) streamflow reduction. To gain further insight, we divided the effect of RC into two parts, natural runoff coefficient (RC n ) and direct human disturbance (HD), and then specified the major contributing factors among different periods (see Methods; Fig.  3b ; Supplementary Fig.  4 and Supplementary Table  3 ). During P1 and P4, RC n accounted for 50.45% of the streamflow decrease in the YR, with HD contributing 42.63%, and the remaining 6.92% being attributable to potential evapotranspiration (PET) and hydrothermal index (HI). For P1 and P2, the rate of decline of the streamflow was −0.61 mm·yr −2 , in which HD made the largest contribution (96.80%). Changes in PET and HI contributed 9.53% to this decline, with the 6.33% reduction surplus being offset by increasing RC n . The largest decline in YR streamflow, −1.15 mm·yr −2 , occurred between P2 and P3, and was partitioned as follows: RC n (70.88%), HD (16.41%), HI (9.27%) and PET (3.44%). For P3 and P4, there was little reduction in streamflow, in comparison to the earlier periods, with a rate of only −0.03 mm·yr −2 . In this case, RC n was the only contributory factor that reduced streamflow, with the contributions of other factors all mitigating the reduction.

On the annual scale, both hydrothermal index (HI) and runoff coefficient (RC) had strong effects on streamflow variation in the Yellow River (Fig.  3c ; Supplementary Table  4 ). The long-term trend of streamflow change masked short term fluctuations, so we explored the contributions of the runoff identity factors to streamflow difference between consecutive years. On average, for the 60 pairs of consecutive years considered, the changes in hydrothermal index (HI), natural runoff coefficient (RC n ), direct human disturbance (HD) and potential evapotranspiration (PET) accounted for 40.38%, 28.79%, 23.70% and 7.13% respectively, of the inter-annual streamflow variation. A significant reduction over time was found for the contributions of HI and PET ( p  < 0.001 and p  < 0.05, respectively), but the HD and RC n contributions showed an increasing trend ( p  < 0.001 and p  = 0.12, respectively).

More than 90% of the long-term streamflow decline of the Yellow River (YR) over the last six decades was attributed to runoff coefficient (RC) reduction. The dominant processes behind this reduction have changed from direct human disturbance (HD) to natural runoff coefficient (RC n ). Human water consumption is the major component of HD, it reduced streamflow significantly ( p  < 0.001; Supplementary Fig.  5 ), especially during P1 and P2, when it increased at a rate of 4.57 × 10 8 m 3  yr −2 almost balancing the streamflow decrease rate of −4.72 × 10 8 m 3  yr −2 at the same stage. This increase in consumption was associated with the increase of irrigation areas in the YR basin from only 8,000 km 2 in the 1950s to 63,000 km 2 in the 1980s 25 . However, from P3 to P4, human water consumption was relatively stable (slope 1.35 × 10 8 m 3  yr −2 , p  = 0.93; Supplementary Fig.  5 ), taking up about 66% of the natural streamflow of the YR but contributing little to its temporal change. Another measure of direct human disturbance (HD) affecting streamflow is reservoir regulation, which contributes more to the change of seasonal distribution of streamflow, rather than its long-term volume variation.

During P2 and P4, declining natural runoff coefficient (RC n ) related to dramatic land cover change taking place in the Yellow River (YR) basin, largely accounted for the reduction in streamflow. The YR once carried more fluvial sediment than any other rivers in the world, which led to the launch of large-scale ecological projects in the YR basin, such as the Conservation of Water and Soil Ecological Engineering (CWSEE) project and the Grain-for-Green Programme (GGP), to prevent soil erosion 50 , 51 . After the implementation of GGP in 1999, difference of the normalized differential vegetation index (NDVI) has increased in more than 61% the YR basin (Supplementary Fig.  6 ). Official statistics show that the ratio of the cumulative area of soil and water conservation in the YR basin has increased from 3.06% in 1969 to 51.36% in 2012 (Supplementary Fig.  7 ). Terraces, check dams, small reservoirs and afforestation are major measures used in these projects 31 , 52 . Wang et al . 53 calculated that, on average, 5.01 × 10 8 m 3  yr −1 of water was retained by such measures before 1997, and their water-holding capacity experienced rapid growth in P2. Based on a method proposed by Liu et al . 54 , we estimated that the augmentation of afforestation caused streamflow decline from a rate of −2.16 × 10 8 m 3  yr −2 in P2 and P3 to −2.54 × 10 8 m 3  yr −2 in P3 and P4. Satellite-based land use images of the YR basin also shown that farmland, construction land and woodland changed a lot between 1980 and 2015, while the change of farmland and woodland always took place in the Loess Plateau where soil erosion was severest (Supplementary Fig.  8 ).

In addition to the long-term streamflow decrease described above, abrupt streamflow reduction occurred at the transitions between periods of water budget (Fig.  4a ; Supplementary Fig.  1 ) and we explored the possible reasons for the differentiation between periods. The relationship between cumulative precipitation and cumulative runoff (Supplementary Fig.  9 ) shown four steep falls around the years 1969, 1986, 1997 and 2003. These years coincided with persistent drought events (Fig.  4b ) and the first impoundment of large reservoirs (Fig.  4c ) in the Yellow River (YR) basin. Persistent drought occurs when the cumulative percentage of precipitation anomalies more than one year exceeds −30 percent and it directly reduces water supply of the basin in drought years. Moreover, a recent study suggested that persistent drought events also significantly decreased runoff coefficient (RC) in following years compared to the single-year drought which just declined precipitation of the drought year 55 . So, it’s not just a coincidence that persistent drought occurred at times of water budget transition periods. Persistent drought not only led to abrupt streamflow decline, also aggravated differentiation between two periods by altering precipitation-runoff relationship. New reservoirs store large quantities of water within a short time as a prerequisite for the reservoir running and this initial phase reduces downstream flow sharply. Liujiaxia, Longyangxia and Xiaolangdi are the first three reservoirs in terms of storage capacity in the YR basin (Supplementary Table  5 ), they impounded lots of water at their first impounding years, 1968, 1986 and 1999 respectively, which partially contributed to abrupt reductions accordingly. Afterwards they also promoted changes in runoff coefficient (RC) by regulating and redistributing seasonal streamflow, for example by storing floodwater which then became an available water resource for irrigation in growing season 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 . As a result, the ratio of flood-season flow volume to annual streamflow and the variation coefficient of flood-season flow both decreased after the building of these reservoirs (Supplementary Fig.  10 ). Although it’s hard to quantify the effects of persistent drought and reservoir construction on the streamflow decline in subsequent periods, they should never be ignored in YR water budget changes of different periods.

Abrupt streamflow decline relating to persistent drought and large reservoir construction. ( a ) 7-year moving-average annual streamflow at the Yellow River (YR) estuary. ( b ) Precipitation anomalies in the YR basin. The red circles represent persistent drought events. ( c ) Cumulative storage capacity of the YR basin. Purple lines show that the years of sharp streamflow reduction are coincident with persistent drought events and the first impounding times of Liujiaxia, Longyangxia and Xiaolangdi reservoirs.

In P4 the water balance was recreated; streamflow reduction was suspended and drying-up episodes no longer occurred (Fig.  1 and Supplementary Fig.  2 ). Government management was the critical factor in achieving this turnaround: in order to sustain stable and continuous streamflow, human water use regime was adjusted, in terms of abstraction and storage, to offset the influences of climate factors and natural runoff coefficient (RC n ). During the late 20 th century, human water consumption had reached the maximum level that the Yellow River (YR) could bear 60 , and drying-up episodes in the lower YR were becoming more frequent and of longer duration (Supplementary Figs  2 and 5 ). The situation came to a head with the severe drought of 1997, 90% of the downstream segment (704 km) had no water for a period of 226 days. To prevent the situation from deteriorating further, in 1998 the Chinese Government promulgated and implemented an annual allocation and regulation scheme for available water volume in the Main Yellow River. The scheme specified the maximum water intake volume allowed for each province along the YR, and authorized the Yellow River Conservancy Commission (YRCC) to operate the scheme holistically based on climatic conditions 61 . Under the scheme, the YRCC gives priority to ensuring that sufficient ecological water is retained in the river and then allocates the remaining part of the available water to various provinces along the YR. With the completion of the Xiaolangdi hydropower station in 2001, the Longyangxia-Liujiaxia-Sanmenxia-Xiaolangdi reservoirs system of the YR basin was brought into operation. The total storage capacity of the YR basin increased from 40 × 10 8 m 3 before 1956 to 682 × 10 8 m 3 in 2016 (Fig.  4c ). This system improves government capacity for water regulation and provides technical support for the implementation of the Water Diversion and Sediment Regulation Project (WDSRP) which aims to scour away sediments and keep the YR flowing 26 , 46 , 47 . The cooperation between all of these measures including institutions, policies and facilities has prevented the YR from drying-up and kept its streamflow stable on both inter-annual and intra-annual scales (Fig.  1 and Supplementary Fig.  10 ). It appeared that the occurrence and loss of water balance of the YR in P3 was inexorable due to the increasing water consumption and the intensification of the contradiction between water supply and demand. And the water balance subsequently achieved in P4 was a great achievement of government management, a series of measures have made the YR much more resilient to risks such as drying-up and flooding.

In this study, we have provided a unique perspective on the Yellow River (YR) water budget and its change, and also presented a simple and efficient method for attribution analysis to capture the main streamflow characteristics in response to the key events and factors which dominate the available water resource. According to our analysis framework (Fig.  5 ), it is a strong possibility that the current water balance of the YR basin will remain in place for the next few years. Currently, the storage capacity of large reservoirs in the YR is 465 × 10 8 m 3 , and there are a number of other large reservoirs, with total storage capacity of more than 313 × 10 8 m 3 , in the planning stages. This increase in storage capacity should further strengthen the competence of government in available water management 25 . Additionally, the development and operation of water-saving technologies will mediate the contradiction between water demand and supply 62 , and the Yellow River Conservancy Commission (YRCC) will continue executing the water allocation scheme to get human water consumption under control and sustain a healthy fluvial system 25 . Net primary productivity in the Loess Plateau, a major part of the YR basin, is approaching its sustainable water resource limits 32 , and ecological projects have imposed measures to alleviate water consumption. However, in spite of the progress made in YR management in the last few years, extreme climate events caused by global change are likely to be more frequent in the future 63 , 64 , 65 , and abrupt streamflow changes associated with uncontrollable climate factors will be a major concern over the coming decades. The management system must be perfected and made resilient to cope with these future climate challenges.

Analysis framework in this study. Water budget is determined by natural water yield and human disturbance, and it can be illustrated by regional streamflow change. The streamflow of the Yellow River has an overall decrease and several periods of sharp reduction in recent decades. The relationship between the coupled human-natural system and the water budget has been found. Note that the gradient fill of arrows represents the change of impact level, a light color means weaker effects while the darker color represents stronger effects.

Yearly and monthly streamflow data from the main gauging stations along the Yellow River (YR) for the period 1956 to 2016 were obtained from the Yellow River Conservancy Commission (YRCC). Yearly human water consumption and storage capacity of the YR basin, and partial large reservoirs water storage data for the 1956 to 2016 period were collected from papers 28 , 29 , 66 , 67 , 68 and from the Yellow River Water Resources Bulletin ( http://www.yellowriver.gov.cn/other/hhgb/ ). Daily meteorological data from 1956 to 2016, including precipitation, maximum and minimum temperatures, wind speed, atmospheric pressure, relative humidity and duration of sunshine, were provided by the China Meteorological Data Service Center ( http://data.cma.cn/ ). Data from 319 meteorological stations were involved in this research. Daily potential evapotranspiration at each station was estimated with the Penman-Monteith equation, and yearly potential evapotranspiration and precipitation were accumulated day by day. The Kriging interpolation was used to calculate regional average precipitation and potential evapotranspiration. Records of soil and water conservation measures, including areas of terraces, dams and vegetation, were collected from the Yearbook of the Yellow River (1990–2012), the China Water Conservancy Yearbook and other publications 53 . Satellite-based land use images (1980, 2015) and normalized differential vegetation index images (1998, 2015) of the YR basin were downloaded from Resource and Environmental Data Cloud Platform ( http://www.resdc.cn/ ) 69 , 70 .

Regional water budget

To depict the water budget, we used regional streamflow that was calculated by subtracting the gauged streamflow at the entrance to a region from that at the outlet (regional streamflow = streamflow outlet − streamflow entrance ). Human water consumption and reservoir water storage change were then added to the regional streamflow to get the regional natural water yield (natural water yield = regional streamflow + human water consumption + reservoir water storage change). Natural water yield represents the initial streamflow of a region before human abstraction and regulation through water facilities.

In this paper, we divided the Yellow River (YR) basin into four regions based on the topographic features and human activity; the source regions (SR); upper reaches (UR); middle reaches (MR); and lower reaches (LR). They cover areas of 12.40 × 10 4 km 2 , 27.30 × 10 4 km 2 , 34.47 × 10 4 km 2 and 3.00 × 10 4 km 2 , respectively, that account for 15.23%, 33.53%, 42.34% and 3.68%, respectively, of the total area of the YR basin. The remaining 5.22% of the area belongs to the interior drainage basin of the Ordos Plateau which is excluded from this article. The annual precipitation of the YR basin ranges from 200 mm to 650 mm, and decreases from the southeast to northwest. So the UR is the driest region in the YR basin, and the upper YR flows through the Hetao Plain that has large irrigation areas, as well as Ulan Buh Desert and Kubuqi Desert. As a part of the Tibetan Plateau, the SR is the major water resource of the YR basin with sparse population, and it’s sensitive to climate change owing to special geographical features. The MR mainly lies to semi-arid areas and faces serious soil erosion, it’s also the traditional cultivated region of China with a dense crowd. Because of uplifted riverbed, the LR covers a small but flood-prone areas, the lower YR provides water for large irrigation areas in the North China Plain (Supplementary Table  1 ).

Tangnaihai gauging station (TNH), Toudaoguai gauging station (TDG), Huayuankou gauging station (HYK) and Lijin gauging station (LJ) are the outlets of SR, UR, MR and LR respectively, while TNH, TDG and HYK are also the entrances to UR, MR and LR respectively (Fig.  1a ). We calculated the regional streamflow and natural water yield of each region by using the data from these gauging stations (Fig.  2 ).

Runoff identity factors decomposition

Analogous to the Kaya and Sediment Identity 31 , 71 , 72 , the runoff (R) can be considered as the product of the three variables:

where R, PET, P, HI and RC are abbreviations for runoff, potential evapotranspiration, precipitation, hydrothermal index and runoff coefficient, respectively. So runoff identity has been constructed.

We then defined the proportional change rate of a variable X(t) as r(X) = (dX/dt)/X. Accordingly, r(R) = ((dR/dt)/R) = ((d(PET·HI·RC)/dt)/(PET·HI·RC)) = ((dPET/dt)/PET) + ((dHI/dt)/HI) + ((dRC/dt)/RC), the counterpart of the runoff identity for proportional change rates can be rewritten as

Therefore, we attributed regional runoff change to the changes of potential evapotranspiration (PET, denoting atmospheric water demand), hydrothermal index (HI, the ratio of precipitation to potential evapotranspiration, denoting natural water supply), and runoff coefficient (RC, the ratio of runoff to precipitation, denoting water yield ability) by using this attribution approach.

With long time series of R, PET, HI and RC observations, we calculated their proportional change rates in different periods using an adjusted Sen’s slope method 73 :

where x j and x i are the j th and i th of X observations respectively and \(\bar{X}\) is the average of the series of X observations. The theoretical proportional change rate, the sum of the proportional change rates of PET, HI and RC, closely approximates the actually calculated proportional change rate of R (Supplementary Fig.  11 ). The relative contribution of each identity factor is the ratio of its proportional change rate to the theoretical proportional change rate of R during the same period. We then multiplied the contribution ratio by the change rate of runoff to get the partial change rate of runoff related to each factor.

Streamflow (m 3 ) is proportional to runoff (mm) and their trends are essentially identical, so the relative contribution of each identity factor to the change rate of runoff is equivalent to its contribution to streamflow. Here we focused on the influence of each identity factor on streamflow.

Identity attribution approaches have been successfully used in many fields, such as Forest Identity for carbon sequestering in forests 74 and Sediment Identity for reduced sediment transport in the Yellow River 31 , due to their simple mathematical forms and great capabilities of decomposing factors without residuals 75 . However, these kind of methods only focus on the contribution of each factor to the change rates of research variables rather than their quantity and these factors are interdependent, which means the method is more sensitive to changeable factors and their contributions should be further explained with intrinsic mechanism based on specific drivers or processes. As for runoff identity, it is therefore suitable for regions where water resources have experienced a dramatic change and it’s better if the change is monotonic, like the increasing carbon emissions. However, hydrometeorologic factors fluctuate widely and reasonable phase division is important for attribution analysis to capture the critical drivers affecting the hydrological change in different stages.

Human disturbance decomposition

Runoff coefficient (RC), namely the ratio of runoff to rainfall, used to describe the water yield ability of a region, can be altered by natural processes (RC n ) such as vegetation interception caused by land cover change, and direct human disturbance (HD) including water abstraction and regulation. To separate HD from RC, we reconstructed the natural streamflow through yearly gauged data (natural streamflow = gauged streamflow + human water consumption + reservoir water storage change) and calculated its change rate. The difference in change rates between gauged and natural streamflow was attributed to HD, and the remaining part of the partial change rate of streamflow caused by RC was interpreted as the influence of RC n .

Statistical analysis

The Mann-Kendall test was used to analyze the change trends of yearly streamflow, precipitation, potential evapotranspiration and other hydrometeorological data 76 , 77 , while Sen’s slope method was used to calculate their change rates 73 . We applied a paired t-test to evaluate the streamflow difference between two gauging stations, and conducted single-sample t-tests to determine whether regional streamflow change is significantly different from 0 (if its water budget balances). A nonparametric test, the Kruskal-Wallis test, was used to test the differences between the four study periods.

Data Availability

The data analyzed during the current study are available in the Yellow River Conservancy Commission ( http://www.yellowriver.gov.cn ) and the China Meteorological Data Service Center ( http://data.cma.cn/ ).

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41722102, 41561134016), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017YFA0604700), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

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The Truth About The Deadly 1887 Yellow River Flood

The Yellow River is one of the most well-known and frequently visited rivers in China, but nearly 150 years ago, it was the source of the world's deadliest natural disaster at the time (via Live Science ). The river was controlled and restrained through a series of dikes and dams that guided the river through the farmland but left the water level dangerously high compared to the lowlands. During the 1880s, the dikes filled up with silt, gradually raising the water level even further until things came to a head in 1887 when heavy rainfall triggered the flood.

The valley below the Yellow River was flooded with a deluge of water that covered a whopping 5000 square miles of land — an area bigger than the size of Connecticut (via State Symbols USA ). The massive flood destroyed both farmland and lives on a tragically large scale. While no official, certified death toll exists, estimates suggest that 900,000 to 2 million people were lost to the flood.

The river is closely monitored today

The Yellow River, which is over 3000 miles long, is the deadliest river in the world because of its knack for flooding its surrounding plains. Before the 1887 flood, Chinese farmers had been building dikes for centuries in hopes of avoiding catastrophes, such as deluges that would claim the lives of millions (via Encyclopedia of Disasters ). Eventually, silt was deposited in the slower areas of the river, and it overflowed in the Henan province. The water destroyed countless cities and villages and the land was buried under a pile of mud. The resulting landscape was said to more closely resemble the Sahara rather than the fertile farmland that previously stood.

At the time, there was very little organization within the Chinese government in dealing with emergencies — particularly one on the scale of the 1887 flood. Missionaries only had meager food supplies to hand out to the thousands of starving survivors, and disease broke out as well. Repairs to the dikes took two years of grueling and often fatal hard labor. Today, the Yellow River is guarded by an intricate series of dams with controlled releases of water to prevent another catastrophe like the 1887 flood and the ones that followed in the early 20th century.

Yellow River flood, 1938-47

In June 1938, Chinese Nationalist armies under the command of Chiang Kai-shek breached the Yellow River’s dikes at Huayuankou in Henan province in a desperate attempt to block a Japanese military advance. [1] For the next nine years, the Yellow River’s waters spread southeast into the Huai River system via its tributaries, inundating vast quantities of land in Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu provinces. Perhaps the single most environmentally damaging act of warfare in world history, the strategic interdiction threw long-established water control infrastructure into disarray, leading to floods that persisted until the Yellow River was finally returned to its previous course in 1947. Between 1938 and 1947, this disaster killed more than 800,000 people in Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu and displaced nearly four million.

After Chinese and Japanese armies had clashed at Marco Polo Bridge in July 1937, the Japanese military launched a full-scale offensive into the heart of China, seizing Nationalist China’s capital of Nanjing in December 1937 and perpetrated brutal atrocities against its civilian residents. The Japanese then set their sights on Wuhan, where the Nationalist regime had relocated.

In early 1938, the Japanese army launched assaults from the Jin-Pu railway’s northern end at Tianjin and from its southern terminus near Nanjing. After meeting at the rail junction of Xuzhou, the Japanese planned to move west toward Zhengzhou in Henan, the junction of the east–west Long-Hai and the north–south Ping-Han railways, advancing south along the Ping-Han railway toward Wuhan. The Japanese army anticipated little resistance in the Xuzhou campaign, but to their surprise Chinese armies held out for nearly five months. When they took Xuzhou in late May, the Japanese moved to bring the war to a decisive conclusion, striking west along the Long-Hai railway in order to press south along the Ping-Han railway and attack Wuhan.

Yellow River Flooded Area, 1938-1947

Source: Micah S. Muscolino, The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938-1947 (Cambridge University Press, 2015)

After the city of Kaifeng in Henan fell in June 1938, the Japanese focused their assault on Zhengzhou. Chinese armies kept the Japanese from crossing the Yellow River by destroying the railway bridge north of the city, but had little chance of maintaining their position for long. With the Japanese poised to capture Wuhan, the collapse of China’s entire war effort seemed a distinct possibility. As the tide of war turned against them, Nationalist military officers raised the possibility of breaking the Yellow River’s dikes to impede the Japanese.

The objective was to cut the Long-Hai railway, which ran along the river’s southern bank, before the Japanese could reach Zhengzhou, thereby halting the enemy’s advance and ensuring the retreat of Chinese armies. Otherwise, Wuhan would fall in only a matter of days, the Nationalist regime might not have time to withdraw, and China would likely have to surrender. Breaking the dikes was a product of utter desperation. Nationalist leaders accepted this stratagem as a military necessity. For them, national survival outweighed the damage they knew the floods would cause.

Chinese Nationalist troops walking through Yellow River floodwaters.

Source: Guomin zhengfu Zhongyang xuanchuanbu. Courtesy of Qinfeng lao zhaopian guan, Kangzhan Zhongguo guoji tongxun zhaopian. Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2008.

But breaking the dikes proved more difficult than anticipated. On June 4–6, Nationalist armies made two failed attempts to hollow out and blast open the dike at Zhaokou in Henan’s Zhongmu County. Only minimal public warning was given, lest the Japanese find out and accelerate their advance. From Wuhan, Chiang Kai-shek telephoned military commanders in Henan to ensure his orders were carried out. A second attempt to break the dike by excavating it was made at Huayuankou, north of Zhengzhou, a few days later. On June 9 the river’s waters spilled through the opening. The breach occurred at a critical juncture, with the Japanese less than 50 kilometers away.

IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES

The river’s turbid waters, not yet swollen by yearly summer rains, moved slowly at first. But floodwaters rolled steadily out of the dike opening and advanced southeast, cutting off the Japanese army’s path. Only people living in the immediate vicinity received any sort of warning from the Chinese authorities. Yet the flat, alluvial plain of eastern Henan was densely covered with farm villages and fields. The Japanese advance came in the early summer rainy season, when the river’s floodwaters were at their highest. Over the next few days, the river rose and weakened defenses at Zhaokou as well. From this point, the Yellow River flowed southeast across Henan’s flat eastern plain. As rains fell and the river cascaded onward, its waters spread across the landscape.

News reel clip of the Yellow River floods in central China, 1938.

Source: British Pathé/Pathé Gazette, ‘Floods in China,’ newsreel, 1938

The flood coincided with the peak agricultural season, when wheat stood ripe in the fields or lay newly harvested, ready for threshing. Hesitant to abandon crops and fields, rural residents left their farms only reluctantly. Some villagers tried to build or strengthen dikes to protect their land and homes, but when waters actually came, many people decided to flee. Those not caught completely by surprise stacked their possessions on wheelbarrows and ox-carts or carried them on shoulder poles, joining the long lines of refugees.

People tried to rescue young children and the aged. They tried to save tools, livestock, grain, and other belongings but there was not enough time to salvage everything. Many people drowned in the flooding; far more would succumb to illness or hunger in the difficult months and years that followed. To the east, however, the river’s diversion halted the invading Japanese, who abandoned their westward march. The vital railroad junction at Zhengzhou was held for the time. The city of Hankou, China’s provisional political center after the fall of Nanjing, won a temporary breathing spell.

Strategically, breaking the dikes may have bought the Nationalist army time to withdraw and regroup, bogging down Japanese tanks and mobile artillery in fields of mud as Chinese forces secured their defenses around Zhengzhou. By preventing the Japanese from taking the railway junction, some scholars argue, the river’s diversion postponed the seizure of Wuhan by several months, giving the Nationalist government time to relocate its capital to southwest China in the city of Chongqing. But the Japanese simply redirected their advance from a north–south land attack along the railways to an amphibious assault along the Yangzi River that combined naval and infantry forces. Wuhan fell in October 1938, after the Nationalist central government had withdrawn into China’s interior.

Yellow River flood disaster victims.

Once Wuhan fell, the Sino-Japanese War settled into a stalemate. The major battles were over, though guerilla warfare continued. With its advance halted, the Japanese army occupied most rail lines and urban centers in northern and eastern China. The Chinese Nationalist regime consolidated its control over the northwest and southwest parts of the country. Frontlines were defined largely by topographical features. The Japanese army could not fight a mechanized war in the mountains and hills that divided China’s occupied and unoccupied territories, nor could they function in the vast flooded area created by the Yellow River.

LONGER-TERM CONSEQUENCES

Any immediate strategic benefits gained from the Nationalist gambit of turning the Yellow River into a weapon came at a tremendous price. Once diverted, the river flowed unimpeded across eastern Henan’s landscape, which had a generally higher elevation in the north than in the south, it left the channel it had followed since 1855 and took a new course. No topographical divisions prevented the river from moving southeast to join the Huai River. Advancing at a steady rate of around 16 kilometers per day, floods spread into narrow, shallow beds of rivers and streams that flowed toward the Huai. Floodwaters filled these waterways and broke their embankments, causing them to overflow and inundate fields to the east and west.

In early July 1938 the floodwaters entered the headwaters of the Huai River, turning northeast to cut across the Jin-Pu railway before pouring into Hongze Lake. The lake overflowed and waters burst into Jiangsu, flowing in three streams toward the Pacific Ocean. Nature’s rhythms heightened the catastrophe, as high levels of summer precipitation increased the flooding’s severity. Especially heavy rains fell throughout June and July. Waters surged as a result.

Japanese artillery bombarding banks of Yellow River.

Throughout World War II, Chinese and Japanese armies engaged in hydraulic warfare as they struggled to harness the river’s energy and deploy it against their military adversaries. Following the river’s diversion in 1938, Chinese and Japanese armies confronted one another across its new course, making it a strategically vital frontline area. Military actors on either side expended huge amounts of energy working with, on, and against the river to attain objectives, undertaking projects to channel and redirect its flow to fortify their positions and deploy it against their enemies. To carry out wartime hydraulic engineering projects, military forces and water control agencies that affiliated with them had to mobilize massive flows of labor and materials. But as refugees fled Henan in the wake of the 1938 flood and famine struck the province in 1942, those resources became extremely difficult to obtain. The task of providing these inputs placed an even greater burden on localities that had already been devastated by warfare and flooding.

The Yellow River was not a passive object in these struggles, but acted to frustrate human efforts aimed at shaping its behavior for military purposes. As in times past, the Yellow River twisted free from human control, as the river silted up, flooded over, and changed its course. At the same time, hydraulic engineering systems greedily consumed resources in a futile effort to keep the river in check. In a time of total war, when armies devoured or destroyed virtually all available resources, this cycle grew even more vicious.

News reel clip of Chinese workers ‘re-harnessing’ the Yellow River, 1946.

Source: British Pathé/Pathé Gazette, ‘Reharnessing The Yellow River,’ newsreel, 1946

The huge amount of sediment deposited by the river added to the disaster, with the threat of flooding growing as siltation caused the river’s bed to rise. The river deposited millions of tons of silt, which spread over vast areas of land. Dikes constructed by Chinese and Japanese, along with the inability of hastily built structures to contain the river’s flow, also influenced the floodwaters’ movements and distribution. Together, siltation and wartime dike construction made the river meander and shift unpredictably, causing the total area impacted by floods to expand. With the deposition of this sediment every year, the area covered by floods shifted in an arc swinging to the south and west. With the Yellow River’s diversion, its sediments also damaged the hydrological system of the Huai River and its tributaries, throwing that drainage system into disarray. Between 1938 and 1945, dikes along the Yellow River’s course broke dozens of times at numerous locations. As drainage capacity drastically reduced, floods grew more severe and the potential for disasters in the Huai watershed grew as well.

Map showing the changing course of the Yellow River over the millennia. The course taken by the river after the breach of the dykes in 1938 is the southernmost line marked “I” on the map. (Editorial note: this useful map nonetheless contains several errors: the Taihung mountains should be spelled Taihang, and the 1048 course should appear between Line A and Line B rather than as Line E just above the Shandong peninsula.)

Source: http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/27041.aspx Map courtesy of the Journal of Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences

The many wartime documents related to the Yellow River flood detail the social trauma and dislocation that the floods caused. As a Nationalist government report on disaster conditions in Henan province’s flooded area conducted in 1940 described it:

“The flood region’s area extends to over ten counties, including Weishi, Fugou, Yanling, Huaiyang, Taikang, and Weichuan. Among the population affected by the disaster, those who will perish without relief amount to over 600,000. Among these [affected areas], Weishi County has been flooded three times. The displaced masses have left and returned only to return and leave again. They are already in a dilemma and their livelihoods have been cut off. In Fugou more than 1,800 villages have been flooded, accounting for over ninety percent of the county’s total area. The remaining scattered highlands are mostly surrounded by water and there is great anxiety everywhere. In Xihua the [number of] flooded villages has also reached over 430. Over three hundred disaster victims and over three hundred draft animals have drowned, so one can imagine the severity of the disaster. Furthermore, the flooded area’s water calamities, in addition to the Yellow River, also include the subsequent flooding of the Shuangji, Jialu, and other rivers, so there is hardly any dry land anywhere. In addition, before the Yellow River flood [these areas] were occupied one or more times [by the Japanese]. Rape and pillaging left them in ruins and their vital energies had already been greatly harmed. After they were flooded, bandits and traitors have also pounded their bones and sucked out their marrow, extorting grain, draft animals, and property so that nearly all houses are empty and have no reserves. Residents who have not died in the floods perish from hardship. Those who have fortunately stayed alive are already urgently gasping for breath and groaning in agony.” [2]

The Nationalist regime’s enlistment of civilian laborers to construct new dikes in the flooded area as a “work relief” project, in which disaster victims received badly-needed assistance in exchange for their labor, only put an additional burden on local society.

“When funds were distributed [to civilian laborers], the procedures were mostly put in the hands of others. Ward and mutual security headman unavoidably embezzled them or deducted miscellaneous fees. Little was distributed to poor households in accordance with regulations, so it was difficult [for them] to avoid the hardship of performing hard labor on an empty stomach. Moreover, households without able-bodied males had to pay to hire substitute laborers. The desperate disaster victims not only could not get any relief funds, but even had to sell their children and their property in order to repay work debts. Curing a boil by digging out a lump of flesh is truly not the original intent of work relief.” [3]

Due to labor shortages, the report on dike repairs also recommended that, “The easier labor should, after appropriately investigating work sections’ actual circumstances, as much as possible utilize women and immature [child] refugees for the greatest relief.” [4]

When the Yellow River’s floodwaters again broke through their dikes in 1942, high-level Nationalist military leaders in Henan mobilized some 400,000 soldiers and civilian laborers to repair them. But this initiative fell far short of its goals due in large part to the famine conditions that had descended upon the province that year. As a report on dike construction explained:

“Shandong-Jiangsu-Anhui-Henan Border Area Commander Tang [Enbo] organized an Inspection Group to carry out inspections and convened a meeting to mobilize soldiers and civilians along the river to quickly carry out repairs and complete them in a limited time, originally expecting to relieve the catastrophe caused by this flood in order to benefit military affairs and the people’s livelihood. However, because in 1943 Henan’s spring famine was severe, the bodies of the starved filled the roads as had scarcely been seen since the third year of Guangxu [1877]. Armies stationed along the river and local units also had special missions and could not concentrate on making repairs. For this reason, the project could not be completed as expected, so that in May, when waters rose during the spring high-water season and a violent northeast wind blew, it led to the catastrophe of dikes breaking at fifteen places below Rongcun in Weishi County.” [5]

During the 1943 spring famine, “all houses were empty and forsaken, and in areas along the river it was most severe.” Although famine-related hunger greatly influenced work effectiveness, “After the wheat harvest, each county’s civilian laborers could eat their fill and work efficiency suddenly increased.” A second round of dike repairs managed to preserve the Yellow River as a defensive barrier against the Japanese, preventing it from shifting to the south and dispersing. Yet the situation was hardly secure. As the report concluded, “after the flood season passes, rapidly closing all breaches and shoring up all dilapidated dike section in order to defend against high waters and ease the flood disaster would be of even greater benefit to the national defense and the people’s livelihood.” [6]

Yellow River flood refugees.

RESPONSIBILITY

Like the numerous scorched-earth tactics that the Nationalists employed during the Sino-Japanese War, the breaking of the Yellow River dikes was undertaken in an atmosphere of high-level desperation and panic that grew from the Japanese war of terror. On the other hand, the Nationalist regime showed a willingness to sacrifice people along with resources to keep them out of Japanese hands. The breaking of the Yellow River dikes was the prime example of this tendency. In the eyes of Nationalist leaders, not unlike other modern regimes of the twentieth-century world, “saving the nation” could justify unlimited sacrifice on the part of the civilian population.

Throughout the war, the Nationalist government refused to take responsibility for the disasters caused by the Yellow River’s intentional diversion. Instead, the Nationalists claimed that Japanese bombing of the dikes had caused the floods, presenting the disaster as another example of Japanese atrocities against Chinese civilians. Chinese newspaper reports published in the summer of 1938 followed the official version of events. The Japanese denied these accusations, framing the flood as proof of China’s disregard for human life. When the disaster’s true causes eventually came to light after 1945, the Nationalist regime changed the narrative and presented the flood as evidence of sacrifices made by China’s people to save the nation during the War of Resistance. [7]

Nationalist soldier directing laborers working on dikes.

From a historical perspective, Chiang’s decision was not at all unique. On several occasions prior to the twentieth century, imperial Chinese armies had intentionally diverted rivers to gain the upper hand against their military adversaries and as a strategic barrier against external aggression, doing little to relocate local populations or offer them relief. Chiang Kai-shek and his subordinates perceived and utilized the Yellow River in similar strategic terms. The difference was that, as it struggled to fight a total war against Japanese aggression, the Nationalist regime pursued a far wider mobilization of natural resources and human labor to pursue its strategic goals. The environment became a weapon of war, while humans became resources in the service of military machines, forced to sacrifice their lives and families for the national cause.

RECONSTRUCTION

Recovery from the disaster did not come until after 1945, when large-scale external assistance to the Yellow River flooded area came from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), which launched redevelopment programs in war-damaged areas of China in conjunction with the Nationalist regime’s Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (CNRRA). In 1946 and 1947, tens of thousands of laborers supervised by UNRRA-CNRRA returned the river to its pre-1938 course. UNRRA-CNRRA offered material support to refugees who returned to their homes in Henan’s flooded area and assisted them in bringing land back under cultivation, making it possible to turn war-torn environments back into productive agricultural landscapes. [8]

Between 1938 and 1945, the precise scale of destruction caused by the flood went largely uncalculated, as wartime instability made accurate quantification impossible. Yet damage reports compiled after 1945 convey the magnitude of the catastrophe (see Table 1 and Table 2 below). Postwar investigations estimated that in the twenty counties of eastern Henan hit by the disaster, for instance, 32 percent of the cultivated land (7,338,000 mu = 489,200 hectares) was inundated. [9]

Table 1: Flooded land area in Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu

Han Qitong and Nan Zhongwan, Huangfanqu de sunhai yu shanhou jiuji , 18.

Table 2: Population killed and displaced in Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu

Han Qitong and Nan Zhongwan, Huangfanqu de sunhai yu shanhoujiuji , 22-23.

In the affected counties in Henan, flooding reportedly inundated 45 percent of the villages. Over half the villages in eight of these counties were destroyed, with the total in Henan’s Fugou County reaching over 91 percent. [10] Wartime flooding killed well over 800,000 people and displaced nearly 4 million people in Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu. In Anhui alone over 400,000 people died, while more than 325,000 people reportedly lost their lives in Henan. According to one postwar estimate, the civilian death toll in Henan’s flooded areas amounted to 4.8 percent of the prewar population. Estimated death rates reached as high as 25.5 percent in Henan’s Fugou County and 26.8 percent in Weishi County.

The wartime floods also turned almost four million people – over 20 percent of the total population – in Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu into refugees. In Henan, the province for which the most detailed statistics are available, the Yellow River floods displaced more than 1,172,000. Refugees displaced by the floods came to 67.7 percent of the total population in Xihua, 55.1 percent in Henan’s Fugou County, 52.2 percent in Weishi County, 32.2 percent in Taikang County, and more than 10 percent in Zhongmu County. [11]

Micah Muscolino is Tutor in Late Imperial & Modern Chinese History at Merton College, University of Oxford

[1] The present essay draws upon Micah S. Muscolino, The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015). The outstanding Chinese-language history of the floods is Qu Changgen, Gongzui qianqiu: Huayuankou shijian yanjiu (Merits and wrongdoings for a thousand years: Research on the Huayuankou incident) (Lanzhou: Lanzhou daxue chubanshe, 2003).

[2] “Huikan Huanghe fangfan xindi baogao” (Survey report on the new Yellow River flood defense dikes) (1940). Institute of Modern History Archives, Academia Sinica, Taiwan: 18-20-02-18-02. In addition to the files held at Academia Sinica, a wealth of documents related to the floods can be found at the Yellow River Archives in Zhengzhou. The Second Historical Archives in Nanjing also holds documents related to the disaster, though access has been quite limited in recent years.

[5] “Huanghe shuili weiyuanhui Henan xiufangchu sanshier niandu di yi er qi zhengxiu Huangfan wancheng gongcheng baogaoshu” (Yellow River Conservancy Commission Henan repair and defense office 1943 first and second period Yellow River flood repair project completion report) (1943). Institute of Modern History Archives, Academia Sinica, Taiwan: 25-22-170-(04).

[6] “Huanghe shuili weiyuanhui Henan xiufangchu sanshier niandu di yi er qi zhengxiu Huangfan wancheng gongcheng baogaoshu (1943): Institute of Modern History Archives, Academia Sinica, Taiwan 25-22-170-(04).

[7] On shifting representations of the flood disaster see especially, Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley, “From ‘Nourish the People’ to ‘Sacrifice for the Nation’: Changing Responses to Disaster in Late Imperial and Modern China,” The Journal of Asian Studies 73:2 (2014), 447–469.

[8] Documents on the Yellow River re-diversion project and recovery efforts launched in the flooded area after 1945 can be found at the United Nations Archives and Records Management Section in New York.

[9] Han Qitong and Nan Zhongwan, Huangfanqu de sunhai yu shanhou jiuji (Damage and recovery and relief in the Yellow River flooded area) (Shanghai: Xingzhengyuan shanhou jiuji zongshu, 1948), 13–14, 18. Note that 1 mu is equivalent to approximately 0.0666 hectares.

[10] Han Qitong and Nan Zhongwan, Huangfanqu de sunhai yu shanhou jiuji , 7.

[11] Ibid, 22–23.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RECOMMENDED READINGS

Edgerton-Tarpley, Kathryn 2014. “From ‘Nourish the People’ to ‘Sacrifice for the Nation’: Changing Responses to Disaster in Late Imperial and Modern China.” The Journal of Asian Studies 73:2, 447–469.

Lary, Diana 2001. “Drowned Earth: The Strategic Breaching of the Yellow River Dyke, 1938.” War in History 8:2 (April), 191–207.

Lary, Diana 2004. “The Waters Covered the Earth: China’s War-Induced Natural Disasters.” In Mark Selden and Alvin So, eds. War and State Terrorism: The United States, Japan, and the Asia-Pacific in the Long Twentieth Century . Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield.

Muscolino, Micah S. 2015 The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938-1950 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.