effects of water discharge and sediment load on evolution ... · the yellow river delta is a...

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Biogeosciences

Effects of water discharge and sediment load on evolution of modernYellow River Delta, China, over the period from 1976 to 2009

J. Yu1,5, Y. Fu1,2, Y. Li 1,2, G. Han1, Y. Wang1,2, D. Zhou1,2, W. Sun3, Y. Gao4, and F. X. Meixner5

1Key Laboratory of Coastal Zone Environmental Processes, Laboratory of Coastal Wetland Ecology,Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai 264003, China2Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China3Key Laboratory of Isotope Geochronology and Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry,Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wushan, Guangzhou, 510640, China4Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA5Biogeochemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, P.O. Box 3060, 55020 Mainz, Germany

Received: 7 March 2011 – Published in Biogeosciences Discuss.: 26 April 2011Revised: 14 August 2011 – Accepted: 27 August 2011 – Published: 5 September 2011

Abstract. The Yellow River, which is the second largestriver in China, is regarded as the world’s largest contribu-tor of fluvial sediment load to the ocean. In recent decades,the dramatic reduction in water discharge and sedimentload due to climate change and human activities in thedrainage basin has greatly constrained the evolution processof Yellow River delta. We highlight how runoff and sedi-ment load discharged into sea affected extension of shore-line length and area of modern Yellow River delta dur-ing 1976–2009 based on remote sensing interpretation andlong-term monitoring data in hydrological station. Averagerunoff of 207.47× 108 m3 yr−1 and average sediment load of4.63× 108 m3 yr−1 were discharged into the sea from 1976to 2008. The annual runoff reduced by∼59.7 % in 1990–2002 and annual sediment load reduction up to∼72.1 %in 2003–2008. Both shoreline length and area of YellowRiver Delta extended overall in the studied period, but withdecreasing rates in accordance with changes of runoff andsediment load. High increasing rate of shoreline length of∼3.63 km yr−1 and quick area extension of∼16.26 km2 yr−1

were observed in 1976–1985. Since 1996 however, the av-erage increase rate of shoreline length and area decreasedto ∼0.80 km yr−1 and∼3.94 km2 yr−1, respectively. In ad-dition, the fluctuated changes of shoreline and area weregreat and the net negative increase of land area was occurredduring this period. There exist significant exponential rela-

Correspondence to:J. Yu([email protected])

tionships between the accumulated sediment load and exten-sions of shoreline length and the area during the evolutionof the modern Yellow River Delta. Our results indicate thatthe evolution of shoreline and change of area of the YellowRiver Delta are directly affected by the dramatic reduction ofrunoff and sediment load, which are much close related hu-man being activities in Yellow River drainage basin in recentdecades.

1 Introduction

The river’s water discharge and sediment load flow into thesea are dominant factors that control the coastal delta evolu-tion, i.e. the landform shape of river mouth, the beach pro-cess and the coastal zone ecological environment (Chen etal., 2001a; Qian et al., 1993). The impacts of sediment trans-port and deposit in world large rivers on the delta-coast mor-phology have been the major research topics in the past fewdecades (Chen et al., 2001b; Milliman and Meade, 1983;Milliman and Syvitski, 1992), and the processes of waterdischarge and sediment load into the sea have become aglobal issue of common concern (Bobrovitskaya et al., 2003;Peng and Chen, 2010; Vorosmarty et al., 2003; Walling andFang, 2003). The Yellow River, which is the second largestriver in the China, originates from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau,flows eastwards through the Loess Plateau and North ChinaPlain, and disembogues itself into the Bohai Sea at Kenli inShandong Province (see Fig. 1 in Wang et al., 2006), with abasin area of 752 433 km2 and a mainstream length extending

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2428 J. Yu et al.: Effects of water discharge and sediment load

Fig. 1. Location map of modern Yellow River Delta(a), history changes of river channel (b, modified after Xue, 1993) and study area(c).

5464 km (Qian et al., 1993). It is regarded as largest con-tributor of fluvial sediment load to the ocean in the world(Wang and Aubrey, 1987). In recent decades, the changes ofthe water discharge and sediment load of the Yellow Riverclosely associated with intensifying human activity and cli-mate change have been widely noticed (Liu et al., 2009;Chen, 1997; Fan et al., 2006, 2007; Peng and Chen, 2010;Wang et al., 2006, 2007). On the Yellow River basin, ex-cept for the water supply by the melted ice-cover on theQinghai-Tibet Plateau, precipitation is the major source forriver runoff and controls the drought-flood cycles of the river.The average precipitation in the 1990s was about 8.8 % lessthan that in the 1950s (Peng and Chen, 2010). Human activi-ties, e.g. the construction of reservoirs and dams, have playeda critical role on the decrease of water discharge and sed-iment load into the sea. Before being influenced by humandisturbances, the sediment load delivered into the sea reached1.08–1.2× 109 t yr−1 (Milliman and Meade, 1983; Qian andZhou, 1965), which accounts for 6 % of the global rivers sed-iment load into the sea (Milliman and Syvitski, 1992). How-ever, more recent data in period of 1990–2005 and 2000–2005 show that the annual sediment load reaching the sea isonly 0.3×109 t yr−1 (Liu et al., 2010) and 0.15×109 t yr−1

(Wang et al., 2007), respectively.Previous studies related to this topic mainly focused on

hydraulic characteristics (Cui et al., 2009; Ding and Pan,2007; Miao et al., 2010; Qiao et al., 2010), the sedimenttransportation (Cai et al., 2003; Li et al., 2010; Peng andChen, 2009; Wang et al., 2008), wetland landscape (Li et al.,2009; Yang et al., 2008; Zong et al., 2009) of Yellow RiverDelta, as well as water consumption and the considered vari-ations in regional precipitation to be slight fluctuations (Pengand Chen, 2010; Xu et al., 2004). Less attention has beenpaid on the detailed relation of water discharge and sedimentload and evolution of Yellow River Delta. Peng (2010) pro-vided an overview of the decreasing Yellow River water dis-charge during the past 50 yr with reference to natural andanthropogenic impacts. Wang et al. (2008) investigated thecontributions of climate change and human activities to the

decreases in sediment load. The connections between wa-ter discharge, sediment load and evolution of Yellow RiverDelta has not yet been extensively investigated. In this study,we present the evolution processes of modern Yellow RiverDelta since 1976, which formed from the latest change ofwatercourse (Qinshuigou), with reference to precipitation,runoff and sediment discharge impacts, revealing the evolu-tion mechanism of modern Yellow River Delta.

2 Material and method

2.1 Region description

The present Yellow River Delta is located in middle of east-ern China, Shandong Province, as shown in Fig. 1a. YellowRiver Delta was formed by functions of alluvium and silta-tion. When Yellow River flowed through the Loess Plateau,large amounts of sediment joined into water. Because of seabackwater, the flow rate of river water became slow and largeproportion of sediment in water was deposited quickly at es-tuary. Dramatic sediment accumulation on the delta-coasthas caused the large-scale avulsion of the Yellow River chan-nel in the last few thousand years (Wang and Liang, 2000).The Yellow River has changed its major watercourse (about600 km from the river mouth) 26 times in the last 2200 yrbased on record of “Outline History of China Water Re-sources”. From 1855 to 1976, it changed its delta channel(about 100 km from the mouth) 9 times and the river mouthhad varied over a range of 100 km from its present position(Fig. 1b). The present channel (Qingshuigou channel), whichresulted from artificial geo-engineering in 1976 and a minorshift of the mouth channel occurred in 1996, is the currentprime outlet to the sea (Fig. 2b). Therefore, the study area iscompletely new-born land which has been created by rapidsediment deposition in past 35 yr (Fig. 1c).

The Yellow River Delta is a temperate semi-humid con-tinental monsoon climate. There is no obvious climate dif-ference between northern and southern parts in the region.

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J. Yu et al.: Effects of water discharge and sediment load 2429

Average annual sunshine hours are 2590–2830 h, average an-nual temperature 11.7–12.8◦C. The frost-free period is 206 din a year and annual accumulated temperature of≥ 10◦C is4300◦C. The average annual precipitation is 530–630 mm,which of 70 % is in the summer, and the average annualevaporation is 1900–2400 mm (Song et al., 2008). The soilis typical saline alluvial soil (Fluvisols, FAO) developed onloess material of the Quaternary period, which was carriedby water from the Loess Plateau. The soil characteristics innew-born land have low nutrients and high salinity (Yu etal., 2010). The natural vegetation is salt meadow with morethan 85 % species are salt tolerant plants and aquatic plants.The plant community composition is simple with small num-ber of constructive species. The predominant species in theregion areSuaeda heteropter Kitag, Phragmites australis,Tamarix chinensis Lour., Aeluropus sinenisand Imperatacylindrica (Linn.) Beauv(He et al., 2007).

2.2 Data and methods

Landsat Multi-Spectrum Scanner (MSS) and Thematic Map-per (TM) images of 1976–1977, 1979, 1981, 1984–1987,1989, 1991–2001, 2004, 2006 and 2009 were used to studythe change of shoreline and land area in the study regionsince 1976. All the images were corrected for removingatmospheric effects by subtracting the radiance of a “darkpixel” within each band image (Lavery et al., 1993), andwere geo-referenced and rectified following the procedureby Serra et al. (2003). The information extraction method ofshoreline is important in the study because the border line ofland and water is impacted greatly by tides for a gentle beachslope (0.2–0.7 ‰) in the Yellow River Delta. The methodsof low water line (Yang et al., 1999), average high tide line(Fan et al., 2009; Huang and Fan, 2004) and tide and theslope correction (Huang and Li, 1994) have been applied toextract shoreline information of the Yellow River Delta inprevious studies. In this study, the average high tide linemethod, which reference to Fan et al. (2009) was used to ex-tract shoreline information of the Yellow River Delta becausethe method is a practical way to meet the required accuracyof the macroscopic analysis.

The data sets (1976–2008) of runoff and sediment load(Lijin Hydrological Station, which is a most downstream hy-drological station in Yellow River, is located at 118◦18′ E,37◦31′ N, from the estuary month 104 km.) used in this paperare obtained from the Yellow River Water Conservancy Com-mission and the River Sediment Bulletin of China, whichwere published by the Ministry of Hydrology, China, respec-tively. The data (1976–2008) of regional precipitation are gotfrom the Water Source Bulletin of China and the River Sedi-ment Bulletin of China. Linear regression analysis was usedfor studying the change trends of runoff and sediment dis-charge at Lijin Hydrological Station from 1976 to 2008 andthe change of shoreline length and area of Yellow River Deltafrom 1976–2009, non-linear regression analysis for relation

of shoreline length and area of the Yellow River Delta and ac-cumulative runoff and sediment discharge at the Lijin Hydro-logical Station, respectively. The relationship of runoff andsediment discharge was analyzed by the correlation analysis.The software of SPSS12.0 (Lead Technologies, inc. USA)and Sigmaplot9.0 (Systat Software Inc., San Jose, CA, USA)was used for statistical analysis and mapping, respectively.

3 Results and discussion

3.1 Water supply and sediment discharge of the YellowRiver

With a characteristics of great inter-annual variations andsynchronous fluctuations of runoff, sediment load and pre-cipitation in an alternation in flood period and drought pe-riod, the annual runoff and annual sediment load from theYellow River discharged to sea showed a downward trendwith time overall (Fig. 2a, b, c). From 1976 to 2008,an average runoff of 207.47× 108 m3 yr−1 and an averagesediment load of 4.63× 108 m3 yr−1 have been dischargedinto sea. The peaks of annual runoff and sediment loadwere 496.0× 108 m3 in 1983 and 11.5× 108 t in 1981, re-spectively, and the minimum values of both annual runoff(18.6× 108 m3) and sediment load (0.16× 108 t) appearedin 1997. The maximum of annual runoff and sediment loadwere about 26 times and 70 times of the minimum values,respectively. The variation coefficients of annual runoff andsediment load were 58.0 % and 73.8 %, respectively, indicat-ing the inter-annual variations of runoff and sediment weregreat during studied period.

The runoff and sediment discharges can be divided intothree stages, i.e. before 1990, 1990–2002 and after 2002.Prior to 1990, the Yellow River have a mean water dis-charge of 296.44× 108 m3 yr−1 and a sediment load of7.14×108 t yr−1, which is similar to previous studies (Fanet al. 2006). During period of 1990–2002, they had reducedto 119.56×108 m3 yr−1 and 3.14×108 t yr−1, respectively,which are equivalent to 59.7 % and 56.0 % reduction, re-spectively. After 2002, the mean water discharge have in-creased to 189.97× 108 m3 yr−1 (∼35.9 % reduction), butthe mean sediment load further reduced to 1.99×108 t yr−1

(∼72.1 % reduction). The result is much close to a recentestimated value of 1.5×108 t yr−1 for sediment load (Wanget al., 2007). Hydrological records of the Lijin Hydrolog-ical Station display that the total seasonal dry-up events ofthe Yellow River channel since 1972 is 1035 days, with 1015days occurred in the 1990s. The most serious dry-up of theYellow River happed in 1997, with 13 dry-up events and a to-tal duration of 226 days within 11 months and dry-up channelof about 704 km (Fig. 2d), because rainfall and runoff in theYellow River basin was much below normal (Fig. 2a, c). Thephenomenon of dry-up has not occurred in downstream of theYellow River any more since the water resource allocation in

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Fig. 2. Annual runoff (a) and sediment(b) at Lijin HydrologicalStation, the annual precipitation(c) of the Yellow River Basin andseasonal drying ups(d) of Yellow River from 1976 to 2008.

the Yellow River Basin was planed to regulate through Xi-aolangdi reservoir starting in 1999 (Fig. 2d). From 2002 to2009, 9 times of water and sediment regulations were car-ried out, thus the water and sediment environment was im-proved. The runoffs of the Yellow River in 2005 and 2007into the sea were more than 200×108 m3, which closed to av-erage annual runoff, and the sediment discharge increased to3.69×108 t in 2003. However, even though a certain annualrunoff was maintained in the river in the succeeding years,the annual sediment load decreased gradually because of sed-

iment retention of Xiaolangdi reservoir (Fig. 2a, b). Besidesclimate change (Peng and Chen, 2009; Wang et al., 2006),human activities including soil and water conservation prac-tices, water diversion and water conservancy project are themain causes for decrease and inter-annual variations of wa-ter discharge and sediment load into the sea. The by-stagedry-up and reduction of runoff are mainly caused by increaseof water diversion quantity in the Yellow River basin con-tributes (Ding and Pan, 2007). The water diversion quantityin 1980s and 1990s is∼ 300×108 m3, which is more thanhalf of average multi-year natural runoff of the Yellow River(Liu and Cheng, 2000). About 85 % of total water diver-sion was used for agricultural irrigation (Xu and Sun, 2003).Due to the construction of soil and water conservation in themid and upstream area of the Yellow River, i.e. the soil ero-sion controlled area of 78 000 km2 and 9399.8 ha forest andgrassland of soil and water conservation in the Loess Plateauarea were set up during 2000–2005, the soil erosion in thebasin was weakened and sediment in water was reduced ob-viously (Ding and Pan, 2007; Peng and Chen, 2009). Waterconservancy project in the Yellow River not only regulatesthe water and sediment from upstream, but affects the evo-lution of river channel in middle and downstream and sedi-ment transport capacity in the river (Peng and Chen, 2009).Up to 2004, more than 3380 reservoirs including 12 largescale ones were built in the Yellow River basin. The totalstorage capacity of those was 563×108 m3, equal to 82 %of average multi-year natural runoff monitored in the LijinHydrological Station (Huang and Li, 2004). A recent studyshowed that the average annual reduction of water dischargeand sediment load by means of water-soil conservation prac-tices were 2.02×109 m3 and 3.41×108 t, respectively, andthe average annual volume by water abstraction for industryand agriculture were 2.52×1010 m3 and 2.42×108 t, respec-tively, from 1950 to 2005. The average sediment trapped bySanmenxia Reservoir was 1.45× 108 t from 1960 to 2007,and the average sediment retention of the Xiaolangdi Reser-voir was 2.398×108 t from 1997 to 2007 (Peng and Chen,2010). Other study declared that the decrease in precipitationis responsible for 30 % of the decrease in sediment load at es-tuary of the Yellow River Delta, while the remaining 70 % isascribed to human activities in the river basin, of which soilconservation practices contribute 40 % to the total decrease.Sediment retention within reservoirs and operation of reser-voirs in the upper reaches accounts for 20 % and 10 % ofthe total sediment load decrease, respectively (Wang et al.,2007). Comparing to data of 1976–1985, we estimate thatthe decrease in climate change (precipitation) is responsiblefor 15–16 % of the decrease in runoff and sediment load atestuary of the Yellow River Delta from 1986–2009, the re-maining 84–85 % is for human activities in the river basin.

In general, synchronous fluctuations of precipitation,runoff and sediment load occurred (Fig. 2a, b, c). Duringperiod of 1976–2008, the significant relations of precipita-tion of the Yellow River basin and runoff and the sediment



Fig. 3. Relationships of precipitation and runoff(a), precipitation and sediment(b) and runoff and sediment discharge(c) in Yellow RiverDelta in 1976–2008.

load discharged into sea from the Lijin Hydrological Sta-tion were observed (Fig. 3a, b). The precipitation, runoffand sediment load in 1980 were 381.2 mm, 189× 108 m3

and 3.07×108 t, respectively. The runoff and sediment loadincreased to 346× 108 m3 and 11.50× 108 t, respectively,with precipitation of the Yellow River basin increased to454.5 mm in 1981. Then in 1982, the precipitation reducedto 379.5 mm, the runoff and sediment discharge also reducedto 297×108 m3 and 5.44×108 t, respectively. The results in-dicated that inter-annual fluctuation of precipitation was themost important reason for changes of runoff and sedimentload discharged into sea. Because the runoff is interactiveproduct of precipitation and land surface, and also a carrierfor sediment transportation in the Yellow River, synchroniza-tion of rainfall, runoff and sediment load is maintained in theriver system (Peng and Chen, 2009). Regression analysis re-sult also showed that there was a significant linear positiverelationship between runoff and sediment load (Fig. 3c).

3.2 The revolution of shoreline and area of the YellowRiver Delta

The Qingshuigou channel extends into the sea for over60 km, and the shape of the Yellow River Delta with beak-shaped river mouth has formed gradually since the rivershifted to the channel in 1976. The river mouths of Qing-shuigou and Qingbacha were formed by sediment depositduring periods of 1976–1995 and 1996-present, respectively(Fig. 4). From 1976 to 2009, both shoreline length and areaof the Yellow River Delta were increasing overall, but theincrease rate was decreasing step by step (Fig. 5). The netincrease of delta shoreline length was∼61.64 km with an-nual increase of∼1.81 km, and net extension of area was∼309.81 km2 with rate of∼9.11 km2 yr−1 within 34 yr. Thenet shoreline length and area of the Yellow River Delta in-creased 50.18 km and 225.89 km2 during 1976–1995, respec-tively, and those extended 11.95 km and 96.6 km2 in the du-ration of 1996–2009, respectively.

According to the trend of shoreline and area changes, theevolution of the Yellow River Delta in the studied regioncan be divided into three stages, i.e. quick extension stage(1976–1985), stable extension stage (1986–1995) and slowand fluctuated extension stage (1996–2009) (Fig. 5a, b). Ahigh rate of shoreline length increase of∼3.63 km yr−1 anda quick area extension of∼16.26 km2 yr−1 were observedduring the period of 1976–1985. The Qingshuigou chan-nel mouth had been seriously silted and many small branchchannels and sand bars separating the channels emerged (Fanet al., 2006). Compared with prior stage, the increase rateof shoreline length (2.13 km yr−1) and area (9.79 km2 yr−1)

were relative low and stable from 1986 to 1995. In the mean-time, oil production in the Yellow River Delta grew quicklyand required the stabilization of the river rather than anothershift of the channel. In July 1996, the new artificial channeldiversion for the needs of oil field exploitation provided theQingbacha distributary at the river mouth tip (Fig. 4). Sincethen, the shoreline started to extend at Qingbacha sand tipand retreat by erosion quickly at the old Qingshuigou sandtip because the sediment supply was cut off there (Fig. 4).In 2006, the flood carried a huge amount of sediment tothe new river mouth and created∼85 km2 of land, mean-time ∼35 km2 land at old sand tip lost. Even at Qingbachasand tip, both shoreline extension and retreat existed at sametime by comparing shoreline of 2009 with 2006 and 2004(Fig. 4). A previous study found that the new river moutharea was silted up by 14 m and the old river mouth area waseroded by 5 m (Wang and Liang, 2000). The average in-creases rate of shoreline length and area in 1996–2008 wereonly ∼0.80 km yr−1 and∼3.94 km2 yr−1, which were about22.2–37.9 % and 24.3–40.3 % of those in pervious stages of1976–1985 and 1986–1995, respectively. In addition, thefluctuated changes of shoreline and area were great duringthe period (Fig. 5a, b). The net negative increases of landarea occurred in 1997, 2000, 2001 and 2009. Our results in-dicate that the rapid stretch of Yellow River Delta has beenpast and the net negative extension of land area should beappeared frequently within future decade because of heavyhuman being activities in river basin.



Fig. 4. Evolution processes of the Yellow River Delta from 1976 to 2009.

Fig. 5. The variations of shoreline length(a) and area(b) of theYellow River Delta since 1976.

3.3 The relation of accumulated sediment load andevolution of the Yellow River Delta

There were close positive relationships between land creationrate and accumulated discharges of sediment (R = 0.96,p <

0.01) and runoff (R = 0.95, p < 0.01) in the Yellow RiverDelta, and both the changes over time kept synchroniza-tion. The data of the Lijin Hydrological Station showedthat the sediment load and water discharge of the YellowRiver in 1976–1985 were∼ 8.33×108 t yr−1 and∼ 344.86×

108 m3 yr−1, corresponding to rapid stretch of the estuarysand tip to the sea with the average annual shoreline lengthand area extending of∼3.63 km and∼16.26 km2, respec-tively (Figs. 6a, b and 4). In the duration of 1986–1995, thesediment load and runoff decreased to 4.24×108 t yr−1 and177.18×108 m3 yr−1, the land extension rate was droppedby ∼41 % of that in previous stage. The average increasesrate of shoreline length and area were only∼2.13 km yr−1

and ∼9.79 km2 yr−1. Since 1996, the Yellow River en-tered into dry period and continued drying up year afteryear (Fig. 2a, d). The annual runoff and sediment dischargewere∼ 54.82×108 m3 and∼ 1.14×108 t, respectively, dur-ing 1997–2002. In particular, the lowest annual runoff of18.6×108 m3 and sediment load 0.16×108 t were observedin 1997, meanwhile the shoreline length shorten 2.33 km andarea of 41.32 km2 land was lost (Figs. 2a, b and 4). From2002 to 2006, the total of∼ 2.51×108 t sediment discharged



Fig. 6. The sediment load, runoff(a) and area extension(b) in different delta evolution stages, and relationships between the accumulatedsediment and the shoreline length and area of Yellow River Delta(c).

to sea by 5 times of water and sediment regulations whichcarried out through the Xiaoliangdi reservoir, leading to theshoreline length and area of the Yellow River Delta extended∼29.63 km∼ 99.48 km2. The shoreline and area of deltaretreated obviously with dramatic reduction of runoff andsediment load. The annual water discharge and sedimentload in the period of 1996–2008 were 124.92×108 m3 and1.78× 108 t, respectively, and annual shoreline length andarea of 1996–2009 increased to∼0.80 km and∼3.94 km2,respectively (Fig. 6a, b).

The material basis of the Yellow River Delta evolution issediment load conveyed by runoff (Cui et al., 2006; Yanget al., 2010). The Heavy-laden sediment along the YellowRiver and associated coastal environmental managementshave been discussed in the past century (Miao et al., 2010;Milliman and Meade, 1983; Qian et al., 1993). The positiverelation of area extension and discharge of runoff and sedi-ment in different evolution period of Yellow River Delta wasfound by several studies (Cui et al., 2006) (Liu et al., 2001).Huang and Fan (2004) found a significant linear relationshipbetween extension of Qingshuigou channel and logarithmvalue of the accumulated sediment load during 1976–1996.In agreement with those findings, our analysis results showedthat there exist significant exponential relationships betweenthe accumulated sediment load and extensions of shorelinelength and the area during the evolution of the modern Yel-low River Delta (Fig. 6c). The total accumulated sedimentload was∼ 152×108 t, resulting in∼308.81 km2 new-bornland generated in the duration of 1976–2008.

4 Conclusions

The present study showed that changes of both runoff andsediment load in the Yellow River were downward trend with

time during the 1976 to the 2008 (Fig. 2a, b) due mainlyto climate change and human being activities including wa-ter diversion, soil and water conservation practices and wa-ter conservancy project in the upstream area (Ding and Pan,2007; Huang and Fan, 2004; Peng and Chen, 2009; Qian etal., 1993; Wang et al., 2006; Xu and Sun, 2003). This reduc-tion directly affected the evolution of shoreline and changeof area of the Yellow River Delta (Fig. 6). In particular, in-creased seasonal channel dry-ups after 1990 (Fig. 2d) madenet negative increases of land area occurred (Figs. 4 and 5),indicating runoff and sediment load close related human be-ing activities are two key factors which controls the evolutionof the Yellow River delta in recent decades.

Acknowledgements.We are grateful for support from the Knowl-edge Innovation Program of the CAS (Grant # kzcx2-yw-223;kzcx2-yw-359); National Natural Science Fundation for Distin-guished Young Scholar of Shandong Province (No. JQ201114);the CAS Strategic Priority Research Program (XDA05020503);The National Commonweal (Agricultural) research project(200903001); the CAS/SAFEA international partnership pro-gram for creation research team; the National Natural ScienceFoundation of China (40873062); the 100 Talents Program of theChinese Academy of Sciences and the Science and TechnologyPlanning Program of Shandong Province (No. 2008GG20005006,2008GG3NS07005); Project of National Science & TechnologyPillar Program in “12th Five Year” period (2011BAC02B01)and Cooperative Project between the CAS and Local Authorities(Y12B011041). We thank Yellow River Delta Ecology ResearchStation of Coastal Wetland, CAS, with the help of field work.Four anonymous referees are thanked for constructive commentsand suggestions, which were helpful for us in improving ourmanuscript.

The service charges for this open access publicationhave been covered by the Max Planck Society.



Edited by: J. Yu

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