Editing Yellow River (section)

==History==

=== Dynamics ===
{{see also|Yellow River flood (disambiguation){{!}}Yellow River floods}}

The river has long been critical to the development of northern China, and is regarded by scholars as a [[cradle of civilization]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Little |first=Archibald John |title=The Far East |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1905 |isbn=978-1-108-01387-1 |page=53}}</ref> Flooding of the river has also caused much destruction, including multiple floods that have resulted in the deaths of over one million people. Among the deadliest were the [[1344 Yellow River flood|1344 Yellow River Flood]], during the [[Yuan dynasty]], the [[1887 Yellow River flood|1887 flood]] during the [[Qing dynasty]] which killed anywhere from 900,000 to 2 million people, and a [[Republic of China era]] 1931 flood (part of [[1931 China floods|a massive number of floods that year]]) that killed 1–4 million people.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Great Big Book of Horrible Things|last=White|first=Matthew|author-link=Matthew White (atrocitologist)|publisher=[[W. W. Norton]]|year=2012|page=47|isbn=9780393081923|title-link=The Great Big Book of Horrible Things}}</ref>

The cause of the floods is the large amount of [[fine-grained]] [[loess]] carried by the river from the [[Loess Plateau]], which is continuously deposited along the bottom of its channel. The sedimentation causes natural dams to slowly accumulate. These subaqueous dams are unpredictable and generally undetectable. Eventually, the enormous amount of water needs to find a new way to the sea, forcing it to take the [[path of least resistance]]. When this happens, it bursts out across the flat [[North China Plain]], sometimes taking a new channel and inundating most farmland, cities or towns in its path.

The traditional Chinese response of building higher and higher [[levee]]s along the banks sometimes also contributed to the severity of the floods: When flood water did break through the levees, it could no longer drain back into the river bed as it would after a normal flood, as the river bed was sometimes now higher than the surrounding countryside. These changes could cause the river's mouth to shift as much as {{convert|480|km|-1|sp=us|abbr=on}}, sometimes reaching the ocean to the north of the [[Shandong Peninsula]] and sometimes to the south.<ref name="Gascoigne">Gascoigne, Bamber and Gascoigne, Christina (2003) ''The Dynasties of China'', Perseus Books Group, {{ISBN|0786712198}}</ref>

Another historical source of devastating floods is the collapse of upstream [[Ice jam|ice dam]]s in [[Inner Mongolia]] with an accompanying sudden release of vast quantities of impounded water. There have been 11 such major floods in the past century, each causing tremendous loss of life and property. Nowadays, explosives dropped from aircraft are used to break the ice dams before they become dangerous.<ref>[http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htpeace/articles/20110329.aspx The Ice Bombers Move Against Mongolia]. strategypage.com (29 March 2011)</ref>

Before modern [[dam]]s appeared in China, the Yellow River used to be extremely prone to flooding. In the 2,540 years from 595 BC to 1946 AD, the Yellow River has been reckoned to have flooded 1,593 times, shifting its course 26 times noticeably and nine times severely.<ref name="Treg">Tregear, T. R. (1965) ''A Geography of China'', pp. 218–219.</ref> These floods include some of the deadliest natural disasters ever recorded. Before modern disaster management, when floods occurred, some of the population might initially die from drowning and many more would suffer later from the ensuing famine and spread of diseases.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/hac/techguidance/ems/flood_cds/en/index.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041231191845/http://www.who.int/hac/techguidance/ems/flood_cds/en/index.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=31 December 2004|title=Flooding and communicable diseases fact sheet|publisher=World Health Organization|page=2|access-date=27 July 2011}}</ref>

===Ancient times===
[[File:Yellow River, Qing Dynasty.jpg|thumb|225px|The Yellow River as depicted in a Qing dynasty illustrated map (sections)]]
[[File:Yellow River watercourse changes en.png|thumb|225px|Historical courses of the Yellow River]]
[[File:Yellow River course changes.gif|thumb|225px|Historical courses of the Yellow River]]
In [[Chinese mythology]], the giant [[Kua Fu]] drained the Yellow River and the [[Wei River]] to quench his burning thirst as he pursued the Sun.<ref>Summary of the story given in the definition of {{lang|zh|夸父追日}}: {{cite book|script-title=zh:现代汉语词典(第七版) |trans-title=[[Xiandai Hanyu Cidian|A Dictionary of Current Chinese]] (Seventh Edition) |date=1 September 2016|publisher=[[The Commercial Press]] |language=zh-hans |isbn=978-7-100-12450-8|location=Beijing|pages=513, 755}}</ref> Historical documents from the [[Spring and Autumn period]]<ref name="Gernet p59?">Gernet, Jacques. ''Le monde chinois'', p. 59. Map "4. Major states of the Chunqiu period (Spring and Autumn)". {{in lang|fr}}<br/> English version: {{citation|last=Gernet|first=Jacques|year=1996|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jqb7L-pKCV8C|title=A History of Chinese Civilization|edition=Second|publisher=Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-49781-7}}</ref> and [[Qin dynasty]]<ref>"[http://homepages.stmartin.edu/fac_staff/rlangill/HIS%20217%20maps/Qin%20dynasty%20map.JPG Qin Dynasty Map] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20150105082440/http://homepages.stmartin.edu/fac_staff/rlangill/HIS%20217%20maps/Qin%20dynasty%20map.JPG |date=5 January 2015 }}".</ref> indicate that the Yellow River at that time flowed considerably north of its present course. These accounts show that after the river passed [[Luoyang]], it flowed along the border between [[Shanxi]] and [[Henan]] Provinces, then continued along the border between [[Hebei]] and Shandong before emptying into [[Bohai Bay]] near present-day [[Tianjin]]. Another outlet followed essentially the present course.<ref name="Treg"/>

The river left these paths in 602 BC and shifted several hundred kilometers to the east.<ref name="Gernet p59?"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Viollet |first1=Pierre-Louis |title=Water Engineering in Ancient Civilizations: 5,000 Years of History |date=2017 |publisher=CRC Press |isbn=978-0203375310 |page=230}}</ref> Sabotage of dikes, canals, and reservoirs and deliberate flooding of rival states became a standard military tactic during the [[Warring States period]].<ref name="Floods">Allaby, Michael & Garrat, Richard. ''Facts on File Dangerous Weather Series: [https://books.google.com/books?id=QTKbcWwJ90MC&pg=PA142 Floods]'', p. 142. Infobase Pub., 2003. {{ISBN|0-8160-5282-4}}. Accessed 15 October 2011.</ref> As the Yellow River valley was the major entryway to the [[Guanzhong]] area and the [[state of Qin]] from the [[North China Plain]], Qin heavily fortified the [[Hangu Pass]]; it saw numerous battles and was also an important chokepoint protecting the [[Han dynasty|Han]] capitals of [[Chang'an]] and [[Luoyang]]. Major flooding in AD 11 is credited with the downfall of the short-lived [[Xin dynasty]], and another flood in AD 70 returned the river north of Shandong on essentially its present course.<ref name="Treg"/>

===Imperial times===
[[File:Ming Zuling.png|thumb|right|225px|The Yellow River and [[Huai River|Huai]] surrounding [[Si Prefecture (Huai valley)|Sizhou]] and the [[Ming Zuling]] in the ''[[Complete Library of the Four Treasuries]]'' edition of [[Pan Jixun]]'s ''Overview of River Maintenance''. By the time of the [[Qing-era]] edition, both had been entirely lost during the 1680 flood.]]
From around the beginning of the 3rd century, the importance of the [[Hangu Pass]] was reduced, with the major fortifications and military bases moved upriver to [[Tong Pass|Tongguan]]. In AD 923, the desperate [[Later Liang (Five Dynasties)|Later Liang]] general [[Duan Ning]] again broke the dikes, flooding {{convert|1000|sqmi|sp=us}} in a failed attempt to protect his realm's capital from the [[Later Tang]]. A similar proposal from the [[Southern Song|Song]] engineer Li Chun concerning flooding the lower reaches of the river to protect the central plains from the [[Liao dynasty|Khitai]] was overruled in 1020: the [[Chanyuan Treaty]] between the two states had explicitly forbidden the Song from establishing new moats or changing river courses.<ref name="Sedtime">Elvin, Mark & Liu Cuirong<!--sic--> (eds.) ''Studies in Environment and History:'' ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=tAxmcRXKpaUC&pg=PA554 Sediments of Time: Environment and Society in Chinese History]'', pp. 554 ff. Cambridge Uni. Press, 1998. {{ISBN|0-521-56381-X}}.</ref>

Breaches occurred regardless: [[1034 Yellow River flood|one at Henglong in 1034]] divided the course in three and repeatedly flooded the northern regions of [[Dezhou]] and [[Bozhou (modern Shandong)|Bozhou]].<ref name="Sedtime"/> The Song worked for five years futilely attempting to restore the previous course{{spaced ndash}}using over 35,000 employees, 100,000 conscripts, and 220,000 tons of wood and bamboo in a single year<ref name="Sedtime"/>{{spaced ndash}}before abandoning the project in 1041. The more sluggish river then occasioned a breach at [[Shanghu]] that sent the main outlet north towards [[Tianjin]] in 1048.<ref name="Treg"/>

In 1128, Song troops under the [[Kaifeng]] governor [[Du Chong]] {{nowrap|({{lang|zh|{{linktext|杜|充}}}},}} ''Dù Chōng'', d.{{nbsp}}1141) breached the southern dikes of the Yellow River in an effort to stop the advancing [[Jin dynasty (1115–1234)|Jin]] army. The resulting major river [[avulsion (river)|avulsion]] allowed the Yellow to [[stream capture|capture]] the [[Si River|Si]] and other tributaries of the [[Huai River]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chen |first1=Yunzhen |last2=Syvitski |first2=James PM |last3=Shu |first3=Gao |last4=Overeem |first4=Irina |last5=Kettner |first5=Albert J |title=Socio-economic Impacts on Flooding: A 4000-Year History of the Yellow River, China |journal=Ambio |date=2012 |volume=41 |issue=7 |pages=682–698 |doi=10.1007/s13280-012-0290-5 |pmid=22673799 |pmc=3472015|bibcode=2012Ambio..41..682C }}</ref> For the first time in recorded history, the Yellow River shifted completely south of [[Shandong Peninsula]] and flowed into the [[Yellow Sea]]. By 1194, the mouth of the Huai had been blocked.<ref name="R. Grousset">Grousset, Rene. ''The Rise and Splendour of the Chinese Empire'', p. 303. University of California Press, 1959.<!--Although note material error in source's claim the river remained on only this path until 1853--></ref> The buildup of silt deposits was such that even after the Yellow River later shifted its course, the Huai could no longer flow along its historic course, but instead, its water pools into [[Hongze Lake]] and then runs southward toward the [[Yangtze River]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pietz |first1=David A. |title=The Yellow River |date=2015 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=9780674058248 |page=50}}</ref>

A flood in [[1344 Yellow River flood|1344]] returned the Yellow River south of Shandong. The [[Yuan dynasty]] was waning, and the emperor forced enormous teams to build new embankments for the river. The terrible conditions helped to fuel rebellions that led to the founding of the [[Ming dynasty]].<ref name="Gascoigne"/> The course changed again in [[1391 Yellow River flood|1391]] when the river flooded from [[Kaifeng]] to [[Fengyang County|Fengyang]] in [[Anhui]]. It was finally stabilized by the eunuch Li Xing during the public works projects following the [[1494 Yellow River flood|1494 flood]].<ref name="eunuch"/> The river flooded many times in the 16th century, including in 1526, 1534, 1558, and 1587. Each flood affected the river's lower course.<ref name="eunuch">Tsai, Shih-Shan Henry.<!--sic--> ''SUNY Series in Chinese Local Studies'': ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Ka6jNJcX_ygC&pg=PA200 The Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty]''. SUNY Press, 1996. {{ISBN|0791426874}}, 9780791426876.</ref>[[File:Ma Yuan - Water Album - The Yellow River Breaches its Course.jpg|thumb|''The Yellow River Breaches its Course'' by [[Ma Yuan (painter)|Ma Yuan]] (1160–1225, [[Song dynasty]]). Flooding of the river has been the cause of millions of deaths.]] The [[1642 Yellow River flood|1642 flood]] was man-made, caused by the attempt of the Ming governor of Kaifeng to use the river to destroy the peasant rebels under [[Li Zicheng]] who had been besieging the city for the past six months.<ref>Lorge, Peter Allan. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=SE2Gw8rjuXQC&pg=PA147 War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China, 900–1795]'', p. 147. Routledge, 2005. {{ISBN|978-0-415-31691-0}}.</ref> He directed his men to break the dikes in an attempt to flood the rebels, but destroyed his own city instead: the flood and the ensuing famine and plague are estimated to have killed 300,000 of the city's previous population of 378,000.<ref>[[Xu Xin (Judaic scholar)|Xu Xin]].<!--This order--> ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=GAAWkYBNu5sC&pg=PA47 The Jews of Kaifeng, China: History, Culture, and Religion]'', p. 47. Ktav Publishing Inc, 2003. {{ISBN|978-0-88125-791-5}}.</ref> The once-prosperous city was nearly abandoned until its rebuilding under the [[Kangxi Emperor]] in the [[Qing dynasty]].

The question of how aggressively flooding should be controlled, and whether it should be steered back to its original channels when it migrated, was a topic of controversy in the imperial court. Rival cliques made arguments based on budgetary, technical and strategic criteria. Geographer Charles Greer identifies two competing schools of thought on how to control the Yellow River. One, which he identifies as [[Confucianism|Confucian]], advocated containing the river between higher levees, thus maximizing the amount of river basin land that could be cultivated. The other, which he associates with [[Taoism]], favored lower levees separated by as much as 5–10 kilometers.<ref>{{cite book |author=Davis, Mike |title=Late Victorian Holocausts|publisher=Verso|pages=387–88|isbn=978-1-78168-061-2}}</ref> In one particular long-running debate during the 11th century reigns of the [[Emperor Renzong of Song|Renzong]] and [[Emperor Shenzong of Song|Shenzong]] emperors, when the river repeatedly broke its levees and migrated north and west, officials battled over whether expensive measures should be taken to return the river to its former channels. The Shenzong emperor ultimately decreed that the river be allowed to remain in its new course.<ref>{{cite book |author=Lamoroux, Christian|title=From the Yellow River to the Huai, chapter 15 in Elvin and Ts'ui-jung, Sediments of Time|publisher=Cambridge University Press|date=1998|pages=556–571|isbn=0-521-56381-X}}</ref>

Traditional [[flood control]] techniques made use of [[levee]]s, [[revetment]]s to absorb the energy of the water, overflow basins, drainage canals and [[polder]]s.<ref>{{cite book |author=Davis, Mike |title=Late Victorian Holocausts|publisher=Verso|page=388|isbn=978-1-78168-061-2}}</ref> Treatises on traditional flood control techniques were written by officials such as [[Pan Jixun]],<ref>''Overview on River Management'' {{nowrap|({{lang|zh|《河防一覽》}}}} {{transliteration|zh|Héfáng yīlǎn}}), 1590.</ref> who argued that joining branches of the river increased the water's power and this in turn increased its ability to flush sediment.<ref>{{cite book |author=Elvin, Mark and Su Ninghu|title=The Influence of the Yellow River on Hangzhou Bay since AD 1000, chapter 10 in Elvin and Ts'ui-jung, Sediments of Time|publisher=Cambridge University Press|date=1998|page=400|isbn=0-521-56381-X}}</ref> The difficult situation around the confluence of the Yellow River, the Huai, and the Grand Canal, however, still led to a major flood of the regional center [[Si Prefecture (Huai valley)|Sizhou]] and Pan's dismissal from court. Subsequently, the river's 1680 flood entirely submerged Sizhou and the nearby [[Ming Ancestors Mausoleum|Mausoleum to Ming Ancestors]] beneath Hongze Lake for centuries until modern irrigation and flood control lowered the water level enough to permit their excavation and the tombs' restoration starting from the 1970s.

===Recent times===
[[File:1938 June Yellow River.gif|right|thumb|[[Chinese Nationalist Army]] soldiers during the 1938 Yellow River flood.]]
[[1851 Yellow River flood|Between 1851 and 1855]],<ref name="Treg"/><ref name="R. Grousset"/><ref name="eunuch"/> the Yellow River returned to the north amid the floods that provoked the [[Nien Rebellion|Nien]] and [[Taiping Rebellion]]s. The [[1887 Yellow River flood|1887 flood]] has been estimated to have killed between 900,000 and 2 million people,<ref name="internationalrivers.org">International Rivers Report. "[http://internationalrivers.org/files/Deluge2007_full.pdf Before the Deluge] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080704083330/http://internationalrivers.org/files/Deluge2007_full.pdf |date=4 July 2008 }}". 2007.</ref> and is the [[List of natural disasters by death toll#Ten deadliest natural disasters by highest estimated death toll excluding epidemics and famines|second-worst natural disaster in history]] (excluding famines and epidemics). The Yellow River more or less adopted its present course during the [[1897 Yellow River Flood|1897 flood]].<ref name="R. Grousset"/><ref>Needham, Joseph. ''Science and Civilization in China''. Vol. 1. ''Introductory Orientations'', p. 68. Caves Books Ltd. (Taipei), 1986 {{ISBN|052105799X}}.</ref>

The [[1931 Yellow River flood|1931 flood]] killed an estimated 1,000,000 to 4,000,000,<ref name="internationalrivers.org"/> and is the worst natural disaster recorded (excluding famines and epidemics).

On 9 June 1938, during the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]], [[Kuomintang|Nationalist]] troops under [[Chiang Kai-shek]] [[1938 Yellow River flood|broke the levees]] holding back the river near the village of [[Huayuankou, Henan|Huayuankou]] in Henan, causing what has been called by Canadian historian, Diana Lary, a "war-induced natural disaster". The goal of the operation was to stop the advancing Japanese troops by following a strategy of "using water as a substitute for soldiers". The [[1938 Yellow River flood|1938 flood]] of an area covering {{convert|54000|km2|sigfig=3|sp=us|abbr=on}} took some 500,000 to 900,000 Chinese lives, along with an unknown number of Japanese soldiers. The flood prevented the Japanese Army from taking [[Zhengzhou]], on the southern bank of the Yellow River, but did not stop them from reaching their goal of capturing [[Wuhan]], which was the temporary seat of the Chinese government and straddles the [[Yangtze River]].<ref>Lary, Diana. "The Waters Covered the Earth: China's War-Induced Natural Disaster". Op. cit. in Selden, Mark & So, Alvin Y., eds. ''War and State Terrorism: The United States, Japan, and the Asia-Pacific in the Long Twentieth Century'', pp. 143–170. Rowman & Littlefield, 2004 {{ISBN|0742523918}}.</ref>

In 1954, the People's Republic of China announced its General Plan to Fundamentally Control Yellow River Flood Disasters and Develop Yellow River Waterworks.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Harrell |first=Stevan |title=An Ecological History of Modern China |publisher=[[University of Washington Press]] |year=2023 |isbn=9780295751719 |location=Seattle}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=111–113}} It sought to address both flooding risks and to convert rainfall-fed fields of the North China Plain to irrigated agriculture.<ref name=":12" />{{Rp|page=114}} Construction began in earnest in 1957.<ref name=":12" />{{Rp|page=114}}

From the 1970s to the 1990s, the dry-up trends accelerated, with the Yellow River failing to reach its mouth for an average of approximately 180 days per year in the 1990s.<ref name=":12" />{{Rp|page=168}} In 1997, the Yellow River did not reach the sea for 226 consecutive days.<ref name=":12" />{{Rp|page=168}}

On 12 August 2024, according to the Yellow River Water Conservancy Committee of the Ministry of Water Resources, since the implementation of unified water flow regulation for the entire river in 1999, the Yellow River has achieved continuous flow for 25 consecutive years as of August 12. Over the past 25 years, the main stream of the Yellow River has supplied a total of more than 543.6 billion cubic meters of water, with a total of 1.464 billion cubic meters of ecological water replenishment. The number of bird species in the estuarine wetlands and protected areas has increased to 373, and the wetland ecosystem has undergone a positive restoration.<ref>{{Cite web |title=黄河实现连续25年不断流_新闻频道_中国青年网 |url=https://news.youth.cn/gn/202408/t20240812_15443210.htm |access-date=2025-04-08 |website=news.youth.cn}}</ref>