The Yellow River law: a framework for integrated river basin management

The Yellow River (Huang He) is the second \nlargest of China’s rivers, with a catchment area of \n795,000km² and a stream length of nearly 5,500 km. \nThe river flows through the cradle of the Chinese \ncivilization, originating in Tibet in western China and \npassing through nine provinces to the Bohai Sea on the \neast. The Basin consists of three reaches with \ndistinctive climatic, hydrologic, topographic, soil, and \nwater and land use characteristics. The upper reach \nextends from desert areas in Qinghai Province to \nYinchuan near the Ningxia-Inner Mongolia border, the \nmiddle reach downstream through the Loess Plateau \ninto Henan Province, and the lower reach from \nZhengzhou through the Yellow River Estuary in \nShandong Province. Erosion of the Loess Plateau has \naggraded the lower reach of river, and construction of \nlevees for flood control in the lower reach has caused \nthe riverbed to become ‘suspended,’ rising 10-15 \nmeters above the surrounding densely-populated \nfloodplains draining into the Huai and Hai Rivers on \neither side. \nThe Yellow River Basin is characterized by the \nmost severe combination of flood, erosion and \nsedimentation, water scarcity and water pollution \nproblems occurring anywhere in the world. Coordinated \nand integrated management of the Basin’s water \nresources is vital to China’s economic prosperity and \nprotection of life, property, environmental quality and \ncultural heritage. The capacity for integrated river basin \nmanagement (IRBM) is greatly diminished, however, \nby weaknesses and gaps in the current legal, policy and \ninstitutional frameworks for participatory planning. \nFrom 2003 – 2004, the author led a team of \ninternational and domestic water resources, legal, \ninstitutional, and environmental experts assisting the \nAsian Development Bank, State implementing agencies \nand a National Steering Committee (NSC) in the \nanalysis of opportunities for IRBM and preparation of a \ndraft Yellow River Law (ADB TA3708-PRC, 2004). \nThe implementing agencies were the China Ministry of \nWater Resources (MWR) and the Yellow River \nConservancy Commission (YRCC). The National \nSteering Committee (NSC) consisted of these and other \nState agencies including the State Environmental \nProtection Administration (SEPA), the State Planning \nCommission, Ministries of Agriculture, Forestry and \nLand Administration, and representatives of the \nprovincial governments and their administrative \ndepartments engaged in management of water and \nenvironmental resources. While the draft Law is \ndesigned principally to address the unique problems of \nthe Yellow River Basin, it is widely viewed as a \nprototype for the Yangtze and other river basin laws, \nand as a major advance in efforts to reform primary \nwater and environmental laws in China. \nA location map of the Yellow River Basin \nrelative to provincial boundaries is shown in Figure 1, \nand some of the Basin’s more prominent hydrologic \nand geographical features are shown in Figure 2.