The Yellow River Water
Conservancy Committee has recently approved the construction plan
of "model Yellow River," marking the total approval from the
competent authority of "prototype Yellow River" "digital Yellow
River" and "model Yellow River." Now the three modern harnessing
strategies have been fully implemented.
The three modern Yellow River
harnessing ideas are called "three Yellow Rivers" in
Chinese. According to them, water conservancy of the Yellow River
in the future is to be divided into three steps. The first step is
to analyze status quo of the river and put forward basic
requirements for harnessing it and related physical parameters; the
second step is to carry out digitized simulation and work out
general plans via modern information technology; the third step is
to experiment on model Yellow River and finally provide a
technically-advanced, economic, safe and effective harnessing
program for the real river.
To elaborate on the "three
Yellow Rivers" strategies, Yao Wenyi, chief engineer of the
Yellow River Conservancy Science Academy, cited an example: in the
optimization design, if experiments on the model Yellow River prove
it workable to reduce a certain dam, the actual investment in the
project will decrease by 2 to 3 million yuan (US$242,000-362,000).
What's more, through flood previews on the model Yellow River, it
could be predicted which section is likely to have dangers, and
consequently which section would be taken as priority in anti-flood
contingency plans and local civilians could be removed in
advance.
In the flood season of 2003, the
practice of the "three Yellow Rivers" strategies played a
big role in anti-flood deployment and direction, said Yao
Wenyi.
According to the "three
Yellow Rivers" harnessing plan, by 2010, an improved system of
flood prevention and silt reduction will be formed along the Yellow
River, and water resources be managed effectively. This could help
guarantee that the river does not run dry in years with normal
weather conditions and enlarge the area of the Loess Plateau under
water and soil conservation to 1.2 billion square kilometers. Also,
160,000 dams are to be built to reduce silt flowing into the river
by 300 million tons.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting
and Daragh Moller, December 18, 2003)