A New Method for Water Quantity and Quality Management in the Yellow River Basin, China

Yellow River, the second longest river in China, flows through nine provinces, covering an area of 795,000 km². It is also the important source of water for North and Northwest China, which providing water to 120 million residents. The average annual water supply has risen from 42.1 billion m³ to 51.5 billion m³ in the past two decades. Consequently, the water resource utilization ratio for the basin has been exceed 80% since 2010. The increasing use of water has resulted in a continuous increase in the discharge of waste water, the amount of waste water discharged into the Yellow River reached 4.34 billion m³ in 2016, which resulting in more than 1/3 of the river`s long water quality being worse than the IV class standard for surface water due to a large amount of waste water entering the river. Yellow River is confronted with the dual pressures of water shortages and water environmental degradation, it become a severe constraint for the sustainable and harmonious development of economics, society and environment, this has brought great challenges to water resources management for the basin. The Australian eWater Source Integrated Modelling System (IMS) was applied to model water quantity and quality in Yellow River Basin. The model was parameterized and validated, then three scenarios were investigated in the research. At last, the scheme of integrated allocation and delivery of water quantity and resultant water quality for the Yellow River is proposed using model optimization control methods. The results indicate that the surface water consumption will reduce by 0.672 billion m³ compared with the "Eight-Seven Diversion Scheme" of the Yellow River. In addition, the loads of key pollutants, such as COD and ammonia nitrogen, entering the Yellow River are predicted to reduce by more than 50%. Overall, this integrated model allows for the optimization of water quantity and the water quality associated with it and their subsequent control in a range of functional zones. This research developed a new method for water resources planning, management and water pollution prevention in the Yellow River Basin, which could also provide decision support for reservoir operation and water right distribution.