Drying Up of Yellow River The Yellow River has dried up more than 30 times since 1972, when it ran dry for the first time in recorded history. It ran dry all but one year in the 1990s. In 1994, it ran dry for 122 days along a 180-mile section in Shandong, not far from where it empties into the Yellow Sea. In 1996 it ran dry 136 days. In 1997, for 226 days, denying water to 7.4 million acres of farmland and producing a dry riverbed that stretched more than 372 miles. The outflow o the river is just 10 percent of what t was in the 1940s. Timely releases of reservoir water kept it from drying up in the 2000s.
The Yellow River wasn't always like this. A resident of one town on the river told the Los Angeles Times, "Forty years ago, their was so much water that you could sit on the embankment, wait for fish to swim by, and go down ad catch them." Now he said, "There are no fish because there's not enough water for them to grow." In some places heavy equipment mines sand from the dry river bottom for construction work.
Water levels in 2008 were 60 percent of normal. In the early months of 2008, 600 million cubic meters of water was diverted to Beijing and Hebei and Shandong Provinces to help with a drought there an ensure there were adequate water supplies for the 2008 Olympics. More than 70 million cubic meters was diverted to the city of Qingdao, where the Olympics sailing events were held.
The Yellow River's problems begin at its source where droughts in the Tibetan plateau have reduced the amount of water flowing to the river. But the main reason the river runs dry is because between 80 to 90 percent of its water had been taken upstream for urban areas, industry and agriculture. Decline of water caused by global warming and the melting of Tibetan glaciers could make the situation worse.
Li Xiaoqiang of the Yellow River Conservancy Commission told AFP, “Everyone wants more water, the dams want water for electricity, the industries want water to increase production, the farmers want more water for irrigation and cities need water for daily living. We estimate that some provinces and regions will see rather large shortages during peak water use periods."
A lot of water is wasted. Agriculture swallows up 65 percent of the Yellow River's water, with more than half lost to leaky pipes and ditches, with rest swallowed up by industry and cities. Twenty major dams punctuate the Yellow River and another 18 are scheduled to be built by 2030. Dams are particularly damaging on the Yellow River because they exacerbate silting and pollution. The reduced flow cause by dams causing silt to settle and prevents the flushing out if pollutants.
To keep the river flowing efforts are being made to distribute water more equitably and use it more efficiently. In August 2006, new laws were passed to better manage and reduce fights over the Yellow River. Beijing gave broad authority to the Water Resources Ministry to oversea management of the river in 11 provinces and municipalities and gave it a mandate to impose stiff fines and sanctions on officials that don't comply with the rules or take more than their share of water.
Yellow River in Shandong
Yellow River Pollution: The Yellow River travels through major industrial areas, China's major coal producing region and huge population centers. By one count 4,000 of China's 20,000 petrochemical factories are on the Yellow River and a third of all fish species found in the Yellow River have become extinct because of dams, falling water levels, pollution, and overfishing.
More than 80 percent of the Hai-Huaih Yellow river basin is chronically polluted. Four billion tons of wastewater---10 percent of the river's volume---flows annually into the Yellow River. Canals that empty into it that were once filled with fish are now purple from the red wastewater from chemical plants. The water is too toxic to drink or use for irrigation and kills goats that drink from it.
In October 2006, a one-kilometre section of the Yellow River turned red in the city of Lanzhou in Gansu Province as result of a “red and smelly” discharge from a sewage pipe. In December 2005, six tons of diesel oil leaked into a tributary of the Yellow River from a pipe that cracked because of freezing conditions. It produced a 40-mile long slick. Sixty-three water pumps had to be shut down, including some in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province.
Every year the Yellow River absorbs 1 million tons of untreated waste from the city of Xian alone. A report issued in November 2008, declared that two-thirds of the Yellow River is heavily polluted by industrial waste and is unsafe to use. The Yellow River Conservancy Committee said that 33.8 percent of the samples taken from the river in various places registered worse than Level 5, meaning it was unfit for drinking, agriculture or industrial use. Only 16.1 percent of the samples reached Level 1 or 2---water considered safe for household use. The survey found that 73 percent of the pollutants came from industry, 23 percent came from households and 6.4 percent from “other sources." The report did not identify specific pollutants.
Around 50 percent of the river has been designated as biologically dead. In some areas along the river, there have dramatic increases in cancer, birth defects, and waterborne disease, Cancer rates in some places are so high they have been designated cancer villages. Among these is Xiaojidian, a village in Shandong on a tributary of the Yellow River. Water from tanneries, paper mills and factories is blamed from causing 70 people to die of the stomach or esophageal cancer in five years in a village with only 1,300 people. More than a thousand other in 16 neighboring villages have also died.
Yellow River Dams
Yellow River map
Yellow River Dams
The massive $4.17 billion Yellow River Dam built near Xiaolangdi in central China is the nation's second largest dam project after the Three Gorges Dam. The main purpose of the earthen dam is to halt the rising river by flushing out the silt. This will be accomplished with 16 reinforced tunnels that cut through an adjacent mountain which allows engineers to regulate the flow of water. During the wet season water can be stored in the reservoir to prevent flooding, and during the dry season, it can be released to flush out sediment as well as provide water for irrigation.
The reservoir behind the dam will be able to store water until the year 2020. At the time no more water can release to flush out the sediment down the river and the river and levees will once again start rising. "Our children and grandchildren will need to think of another solution to the silt problem," one engineer told Newsweek.
Work began on the Yellow River dam in 1994 with the building of huge roads for carrying out rocks and earth and the blasting of massive tunnels.
Yellow River map
The Yellow River dam will protect 120 million people from the river's notorious flooding; better allocate water so deprived farmlands get their share of irrigation water, and ensure the river doesn't dry up like it has in the past.
The dam will make 30 percent more water available for irrigation, which will reduce dependency on wells and groundwater, and produce 1,800 kilowatts of electricity (valued at $170 million a year). This is only a tenth of the power produced by much swifter moving Yangtze River at the Three Gorges Dam.
Unlike the Three Gorges project, the Yellow River dam has received a favorable reception from bankers and environmentalists. Its estimated cost is only a fourth of the Three Gorges Dam. The U.S Export-Import Bank and the World Bank have pledged over $1 billion in loans.
About 170,000 people who live in the Yellow River basin will have to be resettled to higher ground. Most of the resettled population have no objections about the move. Many are leaving mud-walled homes and small plots of land for modern homes with conveniences and large parcels of land.
