The Yellow River Basin is an important ecological barrier and economic zone in China, and has a very important position in China's economic and social development and ecological security.

In 2022, the proportion of surface water quality sections in the Yellow River Basin of Class I-III reached 87.5%, a year-on-year increase of 5.6 percentage points; the proportion of inferior Class V water quality sections was 2.3%, a year-on-year decrease of 1.5 percentage points, and the water quality of the Yellow River mainstem has continued to improve, reaching Class Ⅱ water quality for the first time in its entirety. The biodiversity of the source of the Yellow River, the Yellow River Delta and other regions has been steadily improved. 1992-2022, the number of bird species in the Yellow River Delta Nature Reserve has increased from 187 to 371. The implementation of ecological protection measures such as returning pasture to grass and wetlands in the Yellow River source area has effectively curbed the trend of grassland degradation and grassland sanding in the Sanjiangyuan area. However, the ecological protection and management of the Yellow River Basin is still facing some extra difficulties and problems, and the pressure is still large.

Yellow River Basin prominent ecological environment problems

1.Fragile ecological base, serious ecosystem degradation

The Yellow River flows through the Loess Plateau soil and water erosion area and the five desert sands, the ecological base is fragile, the basin soil and water erosion area of nearly 1/3, more than 3/4 of the area of the country in the ecological vulnerability of moderate or more. The upper reaches of the Yellow River is located in alpine, high altitude areas, plateau glaciers, grassland vegetation, wetland ecology is very vulnerable to damage repair and restoration difficulties. Compared with the 1980s, the source of the river area of permanent glaciers and snow area reduced by 52%, the wetland area has shrunk by 20%, the grassland area reduced by 5.5%. Soil erosion is serious in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. More than 50% of the runoff of the Yellow River comes from the upstream area, but more than 90% of the sediment originates from the middle reaches. This has led to an uncoordinated water-sand relationship in the Yellow River and siltation in the lower reaches. The Yellow River channel is a habitat for many kinds of fish and also an important channel for fish wandering and swimming. The functions of river corridor and biodiversity maintenance in the lower Yellow River have been seriously reduced, and the natural wetlands in the estuarine delta have shrunk by 50%. The number of fish species in the Yellow River has decreased from 125 in the 1980s to 47 in 2018. Rare species such as the main economic fish and the important iconic stream swimming fish knife in the Yellow River estuary have also been nearly extinct.

2.Serious shortage of water resources and insufficient guarantee of ecological flows

The Yellow River basin supports 12% of the population, 15% of the arable land and 14% of the economy with 2% of the water resources of the country, and the shortage of water resources is the biggest contradiction in the Yellow River basin. The average water resources of the Yellow River Basin for many years is 64.7 billion m³, which is less than 7% of the Yangtze River, but the utilization rate of water resources is as high as 80%, which is far more than the ecological warning line of 40%. Under the severe situation of water resources shortage, the total amount of industrial and agricultural water consumption in the Yellow River Basin is large and inefficient, the water consumption per unit of GDP is one times higher than that of developed countries, the utilization level of agricultural water is 30% lower than that of the world's advanced level, and the utilization rate of recycled water is less than 10%. The ecological water consumption of production and living water is seriously crowded, the ecological environment of the basin accounts for only 7.7% of the water replenishment, the ecological flow of the main stream is low, and the ecological flow of some tributaries is insufficient, and 7 out of 13 major first-class tributaries have broken the flow, and Fenhe River, Qinhe River, Dahai River and other tributaries have broken the flow seriously, and the insufficiency of the ecological flow has caused the degradation of the Yellow River ecosystem and the continuous deterioration of the basin's water environment.

3.Serious overloading of pollutants into the river and unsynchronized improvement of water quality of thousands of tributaries.

The industrial structure of the Yellow River basin is heavy, the layout is unreasonable, and there are more high-energy-consuming and high-polluting enterprises, which pose a greater threat to the water environment of the main stream of the Yellow River and its major tributaries; the sewage collection and treatment pipeline network in the basin is not sound, and the problems of rainwater and sewage mixing and overflowing are prominent; large and medium-sized irrigation districts have serious pollution of farmland recession, and there are more outstanding debts in pollution control. The Yellow River basin carries about 6% of the country's wastewater discharge and 7% of the COD emissions, wastewater discharge accounted for about 8% of the current runoff, and in the past 30 years the total amount of wastewater discharged into the Yellow River has been a year-on-year trend of increase, the sewage capacity and the demand for social development of the contradiction between the acute basin of water pollution situation is grim. Although the water quality of the main stream has improved significantly, the overall water environment quality of the Yellow River is lower than the national average level of good water quality section ratio is 0.4 percentage points lower than the national average level, and the ratio of poor V class section is 1.6 percentage points higher than the national average level. In some tributaries, especially in the middle reaches of the Yellow River flowing through cities, there are still poor V water bodies. During the flood season, the intensity of river pollution increases, and the situation of water pollution is still serious.

4.Industry relies on energy, ecological and environmental risks are prominent

The Yellow River basin is China's important energy, coal chemical industry base, coal production accounted for about 70% of the country, the number of coal chemical industry enterprises accounted for about 80% of the country, the national "14th Five-Year Plan" plan to build seven new energy bases in four of the Yellow River Basin, the basin industry is mainly energy-intensive heavy industry, that is, leaning on the energy leaning on the problem is prominent. In the upper and middle reaches of some areas, coal chemical industry, coking, non-ferrous metal smelting, iron and steel and other "two high and one capital" (high energy consumption, high pollution, resources) enterprises along the Yellow River trunk and tributary distribution, trunk and tributary rivers within 1km of the more risky sources, enterprise pollution control facilities, environmental supervision and pollution along the river early warning level has not yet fully meet the green development requirements, the basin water environment risk prevention pressure. According to the data of 2021, general industrial solid waste and hazardous waste generation in 9 provinces (autonomous regions) in the Yellow River Basin accounted for 47.2% and 42.5% of the national total, and a large amount of industrial solid waste and hazardous waste are disposed of in the form of landfill or storage, which makes the environmental risk hidden danger more serious. Satellite remote sensing monitoring data show that only in the Yellow River Basin, there are more than 15 million mu (about 1 million h㎡) of abandoned mines left over from history, accounting for nearly 50% of the total amount of the country, and some of the non-ferrous metal mines have a lot of heavy metal pollution problems left over from history, which is difficult to solve.

Countermeasures Suggestions for Ecological Protection and Governance of the Yellow River Basin

1.Establish a collaborative research platform to improve the scientific and technological support capacity of ecological protection and governance

The Yellow River Basin faces complex ecological and environmental problems such as fragile and sensitive ecological environment, water resource shortage, water-sand imbalance, water-soil-solid composite pollution, and industrial dependence on energy, etc., and at the same time, it also faces the outstanding contradiction between ecological protection and economic development, which requires the strengthening of scientific and technological support and the coordination of the upstream and downstream, the trunk and branch, and the left and right coasts, so as to solve the basin-wide, regional and complex ecological and environmental problems. However, the scientific research foundation of ecological protection and management of the Yellow River Basin is relatively weak, the scientific and technological resources are relatively scattered, and there are problems such as the systematic, holistic and practical nature of the scientific research work is not strong, and each of them is doing its own thing and lack of collaborative research, etc. It is necessary to establish a collaborative research platform in the Yellow River Basin, organize a multidisciplinary cross, multidisciplinary integration of scientific and technological research team, and systematically carry out interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary researches, so as to push the paradigm of the Yellow River Basin pollution treatment from "fragmented and block" to "synergistic and holistic". It is proposed to focus on the key areas and major key issues such as responding to climate change, ecosystem greening and capacity expansion, integrated control of three waters (water environment, water resources and aquatic organisms), synergistic management of water, soil, and solid across mediums and multiple elements, transformation of industrial green development, synergistic effect of pollution reduction and carbon emission reduction, realization of ecological product value, and intelligent perception decision-making, etc., and to give full play to the role of the Yellow River Basin synergistic research platform to make a batch of key scientific research results, and to carry out application of research in urban areas of the Yellow River Basin. Carry out application practice in the urban areas of the Yellow River Basin to comprehensively support the green, low-carbon and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin.

2.Scientific diagnosis of the causes of outstanding ecological problems to realize precise policy implementation

The Yellow River has a total length of about 5464km, flows through 9 provinces (autonomous regions), passes through the three major plateaus of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Loess Plateau, Inner Mongolia Plateau, and the downstream North China Plain, and its upstream and downstream climatic conditions, geomorphological and geological conditions, and resource endowment features are very different, and ecological and environmental problems are complicated and diversified, which constitutes a large and complex organic whole, with upstream and downstream, left and right banks, main and branch streams, and water and land each with its own characteristics and mutual influences, and "headache and cure", and "footache and cure", and so on. The governance mode of "treating the headache and the foot" cannot achieve the purpose of ecological protection and governance of the basin. It is suggested to take into account the basic situation of the Yellow River Basin, such as economic society, human geography and resource endowment, systematically analyze the characteristics of water resources, water environment and water ecology and their evolution patterns in the new period, find out the ecological background of the basin, quantitatively depict the main causes of ecological and environmental problems in different regions and types of the Yellow River Basin, comprehensively identify the key factors affecting the Yellow River Basin's ecological environment, and explore the deep-seated relationship and interactions among the elements in-depth. It will comprehensively identify the key factors affecting the ecological environment of the Yellow River Basin, deeply explore the deep relationship and mutual influence mechanism among various elements, and form a scientific and accurate cognition as well as a holistic and systematic judgment, so as to provide a basis for scientific decision-making and precise policy-making in the Basin.

3.Prioritize green and promote high-level protection and high-quality development in an integrated manner

The essence of environmental problems is the economic structure, production mode and development path. Economically, there is a gap between the Yellow River Basin and the Yangtze River Basin, and there is an imbalance in the development of the upper, middle and lower reaches of the river, especially in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River, where seven provinces (autonomous regions) are underdeveloped, with a weak economic foundation and lagging behind in the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. In addition to improving the protection and restoration of the Yellow River, it is also necessary to collaborate to promote the high-quality development of the basin. It is recommended to deeply analyze the coupling mechanism between regional resource and environmental carrying capacity and social economy in the Yellow River Basin, based on resource endowment and basic conditions, strengthen the leading role of "three lines and one single", clarify the bottom line of the environmental carrying capacity of the basin, and increase the upper limit of the economic development, optimize the spatial development pattern of the national territory, and promote the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure. On the basis of ecological protection and restoration, according to the regional characteristics and positioning, open up the channels for realizing the value of ecological products, put forward the path of high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin based on the perspective of the resource-environment-economy composite system, promote the economic development by environmental protection and pollution control, and establish a new model for the Yellow River Basin in which the reduction of pollution and the reduction of carbon are synergistic, and human beings and the nature are in harmony and coexisting.

Conclusion

The ecological protection of the Yellow River Basin is a major scientific issue involving complex system engineering, which requires the application of synergistic theory, scientific coordination, precise policy making and synergistic promotion. However, the scientific research foundation of ecological protection and management of the Yellow River Basin is relatively weak, the data results are scattered, and the wholeness and systemicity are insufficient. It is necessary to crack the fragmented scientific research dilemma, organize and cohesion of the national advantageous scientific research strength, "check the pulse of the major ecological and environmental problems of the Yellow River Basin, and prescribe medicines", and stimulate new impetus for economic and social development with high-level ecological environmental protection, and promote the green development of the basin. The high level of ecological environmental protection will stimulate the economic and social development of new kinetic energy and promote the green, low-carbon and high-quality development of the basin.

Source: Journal of Environmental Protection