The Renewability of Water Resources and Its Quantification of the Yellow River Basin in China
黄河水资源量可再生性问题及量化研究

The drying-up event in the lower reaches of the Yellow River during the 1990s was the most serious problem of water resources issues in China that involved the concept of water resources renewability in the Yellow River basin. The problem of renewability linked with hydrological process affected by climate change and human activity was addressed in this paper. A quantitative method was developed to analyse causes and to propose countermeasures to improve renewability of water resources. The magnitude of renewability and change in time and space within the river system can be represented using this method. According to the analysis of observation data set, the renewability of water resources of the Yellow River basin has had a significant declining trend since the 1950s. Specially, the renewability indicator in the downstream has reduced 0.2 with a worse situation of the 1990s. By renewability assessment, some of the workable countermeasures can be analyzed.