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  • Review Article
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Anthropogenic impacts on the Yellow River Basin

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 6, pages 656–671 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Yellow River Basin supports a population of 200 million people and contains 15% of arable land in China. Water scarcity in the region is being exacerbated by climate change and human activities. In this Review, we discuss anthropogenic impacts on the hydrological cycle and sediment dynamics of the Yellow River since the 1950s. The Yellow River had one of the largest sediment loads in the world, peaking at 2.1 Gt yr−1 in 1958. Such high sediment loads elevated flood risk; therefore, reservoirs, conservation and revegetation projects were implemented, reducing sediment transport by 90% since the 1980s. However, these efforts also impacted the hydrology of the Yellow River Basin, leading to an increase in evapotranspiration fluxes (1.79 mm yr−2, 1980–2020) and reduced runoff. In addition, human water use has increased by 15.8% since the 1980s. The resulting reductions in soil water storage and intensification of the vertical water cycle foreshadow potential resource crises and will potentially lead to irreversible ecosystem degradation. Predicting the outcomes of water management policies and engineering projects is essential but highly complex owing to feedback loops and interactions between human activities and hydrological changes. Addressing these challenges, which are also faced by other arid-region rivers, will require dynamic monitoring of water storage and improved understanding of human–hydrological interactions.

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Fig. 1: The water cycle in the YRB.
Fig. 2: Time series and trends in water cycle components.
Fig. 3: Spatial and temporal patterns of sediment transport.
Fig. 4: Population and human water use.
Fig. 5: Land use, vegetation and economic changes.
Fig. 6: Feedback loops for anthropogenic impacts on the Yellow River.

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Data availability

Supplementary Table 1 outlines details of the datasets used in Figs. 1–4.

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Acknowledgements

S.W. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 42041007 and U2243601). S.S. was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42401126). X.W. was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42201306). B.F. is grateful for the 111 Project of China (B23027) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. P.R. and S.S. thank the Max Planck Society for funding. J.B. is grateful for support through the Jack and Richard Threet Chair in Sedimentary Geology at Illinois.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Disaster Risk Reduction, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Shuai Wang  (王帅), Shuang Song  (宋爽), Haoyu Zhang  (张皓宇), Lu Yu  (于璐), Chentai Jiao  (焦晨泰), Changjia Li  (李长嘉), Xutong Wu  (武旭同) & Wenwu Zhao  (赵文武)

  2. Department of Co-evolution of Land Use and Urbanisation, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany

    Shuang Song  (宋爽) & Patrick Roberts

  3. Department Structural Changes of the Technosphere, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany

    Shuang Song  (宋爽)

  4. Department of Earth Science and Environmental Change, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Jim Best

  5. Department of Geography and GIS, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Jim Best

  6. Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Jim Best

  7. Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Laboratory, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Jim Best

  8. State Key Laboratory of Regional and Urban Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Bojie Fu  (傅伯杰)

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Contributions

S.W., S.S. and B.F. formulated the review and identified the themes to be covered. S.S., H.Z., L.Y. and C.J. drafted the figures and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. P.R. helped structure and revise the manuscript; J.B., X.W., C.L. and W.Z. revised the manuscript and provided extensive comments. All authors made substantial contributions to the discussion of content.

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Correspondence to Bojie Fu  (傅伯杰).

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Wang, S., Song, S., Zhang, H. et al. Anthropogenic impacts on the Yellow River Basin. Nat Rev Earth Environ 6, 656–671 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-025-00718-2

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