Prediction of Sediment Yield in the Middle Reaches of the Yellow River Basin Under Extreme Precipitation

Abstract

The Yellow River is one of the rivers with the largest amount of sediment in the world. The amount of incoming sediment has an important impact on water resources management, sediment regulation schemes, and the construction of water conservancy projects. The Loess Plateau is the main source of sediment in the Yellow River Basin. Floods caused by extreme precipitation are the primary driving forces of soil erosion in the Loess Plateau. In this study, we constructed the extreme precipitation scenarios based on historical extreme precipitation records in the main sediment-yielding area in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. The amount of sediment yield under current land surface conditions was estimated according to the relationship between extreme precipitation and sediment yield observations in the historical period. The results showed that the extreme rainfall scenario of the study area reaches to 159.9 mm, corresponding to a recurrence period of 460 years. The corresponding annual sediment yield under the current land surface condition was range from 0.821 billion tons to 1.899 billion tons, and the median annual sediment yield is 1.355 billion tons, of which more than 91.9% of sediment yields come from the Hekouzhen to Longmen sectionand the Jinghe River basin. Therefore, even though the vegetation of the Loess Plateau has been greatly improved, and a large number of terraces and check dams have been built, the flood control and key project operation of the Yellow River still need to be prepared to deal with the large amount of sediment transport.