Yellow River Ceased to Reach the Sea for 226 Days in 1997: Irrigation Outweighed the Dams

By the late 1990s, China’s second-longest river regularly halted before reaching its delta in Shandong. The 1997 record is often cited to blame the large dams. Yet hydrological work first points to volumes diverted for irrigation, followed by collective management that set the river back in motion.

As early as 1972, the lower reach dried up, and the Lijin gauging station logged 226 days without discharge in 1997

The first episode of total drying of the downstream section dates back to 1972. After that, outages became almost annual, with a clear intensification through the 1990s. A study published by Huai University details the case of Lijin, the last gauging station before the estuary of the Bohai Sea.

In 1997, this station recorded no flow thirteen times, for a total of 226 days. It is thus a sum of interruptions, and not a single continuous period. Moreover, the water-deprived stretch extended to 704 kilometers, from the mouth up to the environs of Kaifeng, in Henan.

From then on, the delta, its wetlands, and the riverine towns of Shandong faced freshwater shortages for several consecutive months.

Agricultural withdrawals explain most of the deficit, before rainfall decline and the dam effects

Several analyses converge on this point. Chen and Mu, in 2000, designate the water diversions as the major cause of flow ruptures in the middle and lower reaches. Likewise, other models concluded that the low flows depend more on agricultural withdrawals than on climatic variability.

Indeed, withdrawals can absorb nearly half of the mean annual discharge, estimated at around 58 billion cubic meters. The irrigated districts pump the bulk of these volumes, ahead of cities and factories.

Nevertheless, the climate also plays a role, as rainfall has declined in parts of the basin. As for dams, they store and redistribute water without consuming it. Thus, no study attributes the drying to them alone, which significantly nuances the often-cited shortcut.

Since March 1999, the Yellow River Commission allocates annual capped volumes among the provinces

In December 1998, the National Planning Commission and the Ministry of Water Resources published a plan for annual allocations. Then, in March 1999, the Yellow River Conservancy Commission launched unified regulation of the main stem. From then on, each province received a predefined envelope.

Concretely, the commission sets a schedule of releases from reservoirs and monitors water withdrawals. Moreover, a State Council regulation, adopted in 2006, provided a legal basis for this mechanism. The upstream reservoirs, long criticized, thus became a tool to support the low-flow discharge.

The results appeared quickly. Yet, a few cutoffs still occurred in 1999, so that the uninterrupted series actually begins on August 12, 1999, according to official Chinese tallies.

A quarter-century without a break at the mouth, but a resource still strained across the basin

By summer 2024, Chinese authorities counted twenty-five consecutive years of flow to the sea. In parallel, ecological releases now aim to re-wet the delta’s wetlands, which had retreated during the critical decade.

Yet pressure remains high on a modest resource. Consequently, every drought rekindles the question of the trade-offs among fields, industries, and cities.

This case thus illustrates a simple rule of hydrology. A structure alters the water calendar, while the volume consumed determines what ultimately reaches the estuary.