Preface I of My Book on Yellow River Research and Management Strategy by Mr. Shucheng Wang, Former Minister, Ministry of Water Resources, China

The Yellow River is the most challenging river to manage in China, possibly even in the world. Generations of water resources engineers painstakingly applied unremitting effort in exploring the research, development and protection of this river. As early as in 1955, a comprehensive plan on Controlling the Flood and Developing the Water Resources of the Yellow River was passed in the Second Session of the First National People’s Congress. After a half century’s research and engineering practices, great achievements attracted worldwide attentions have been made.

However, it is still an extremely complex task to manage and protect the Yellow River. Sediment problems of the Yellow River have not been completely resolved. In the lower Yellow River, issues such as aggraded river bed due to siltation, secondary suspended river, transversal/diagonal river and floodplain inundation are still great threats. Flood protection remains a concern with potentially severe consequences.

Managing the complex lower reach is interrelated with managing the entire upper and middle reaches of this river. Flooding of the lower Yellow River is primarily caused by continuous siltation, which results in rising of the channel bed. A crucial element of sustainability is how to realize “no channel bed rising” in the lower reach. This condition can be achieved through water and sediment regulation employing combined operations of reservoirs in the middle reach, and regulations of the channels in the lower reach. This strategy will increase the sediment transport capacities by flood, and solve many problems such as secondary suspended  river, and sedimentation on the floodplain and bayou.

In recent years, Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Ministry of Water Resources proposed overall management objectives for the Yellow River: “no embankment breaching, no river course running dry, no pollution over standard and no river bed rising”. Inspired by these objectives, many theoretical and practical research results have been obtained by numerous water resource engineers. The author of this book is one of them. For many years, he has focused on how to manage the Yellow River, especially the sediment problems of the lower reach. This book emphasizes on the author’s own view and in-depth analysis on the mechanisms of flood discharges and sediment transport capacity of the channels in the Lower Yellow River, the evolution and the reformation of the braided reach of the Lower Yellow River, water and sediment regulation based on combined operations of reservoirs, and construction of the high efficient flood discharge and sediment transport channel.  The publication of this book should be celebrated, since it opens new path in understanding the sediment problems of the lower Yellow River. I sincerely wish more and more engineers would devote themselves to the research of managing and developing the Yellow River, and contribute to the ambitious goal of “no river bed rising”.

Shucheng Wang,

Former Minister, Ministry of Water Resources, China.

(Thanks for the revision of the translation from Mr. Daniel O'Leary, P.E. of NMP Engineering Consultants, Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, http://www.nmpengineering.com)