People can not help but ask: like such a disaster of the scourge of the river, how can become the "cradle" of the Chinese nation?
It is interesting to say, in thousands of years to tens of thousands of years ago, the Loess Plateau and even the Yellow River Basin, the natural conditions are very good, comparable to today's Jianghuai Valley. At that time, the Yellow River Basin had a warm climate, dense forests and fertile land, especially along the lower reaches of the river. That's why our ancestors chose this place to live and reproduce.
But then the Yellow River changed, it began to become fierce and violent, tossing the people on both sides of the river. The Yellow River became a source of worry for the Chinese people.
The Yellow River is the most sandy river in the world, containing 68 times as much sand as the Yangtze River. The total weight of sediment brought downstream from the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River reaches 1.6 billion tons every year, of which 1.2 billion tons are moved to the sea and 400 million tons are deposited in the downstream channels. The problem lies in this 400 million tons of sediment. It makes the bed of the Yellow River rise year by year, as a result, some sections of the river are 3-4 meters higher than the farmland on both sides of the river, and some are even more than 10 meters high, making the Yellow River become a hanging river. Every flood season, the dykes in these sections of the Yellow River are prone to break, causing terrible floods.
According to scientists, there are two reasons for the change in the Yellow River. One is that since the Qin Dynasty, the Loess Plateau has seen temperatures turn colder and heavy rains concentrate. This, together with the loose structure of the loess itself, which is susceptible to erosion and collapse, has fueled erosion and allowed large amounts of sediment to enter the Yellow River. Secondly, rapid population growth and unrestricted reclamation and grazing have destroyed forests, damaged grasslands, and severely damaged green vegetation, and the Loess Plateau has lost its natural protective layer, causing serious soil erosion. Every year, 4,000 tons of valuable soil are eroded away per square kilometer in the Yellow River Basin, which is equivalent to destroying 5.5 million mu of arable land a year! More seriously, soil erosion has significantly reduced the fertility of the soil, resulting in a large reduction in crop yields. The more production is reduced, the more people have to reclaim the wasteland, the more reclamation, soil erosion is more serious. So the more reclaimed the poorer, the poorer the more reclaimed, the Yellow River in the sediment is also more and more. As a result, the Yellow River breaks and diverts more and more frequently.
The key to good management of the Yellow River is to keep the sediment under control and not to let it flow into the Yellow River as it pleases. After the founding of New China, scientists had already devised programs for managing the Yellow River. They believed that the Loess Plateau area should adhere to the direction of pasture and forest-based management. Forest resources must be protected so that the lost vegetation can be restored as soon as possible. Everyone should understand that destroying the forests is an act of suicide; the use of land should be rationally planned, and at the same time a large number of water conservancy projects should be constructed. This several-pronged approach, will be able to prevent soil erosion, the Yellow River into a better dream will become a reality.