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How have dams changed the amount of sediment reaching the Yellow River delta?
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Yellow River
The Yellow River (Huang He) basin and the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) basin and their drainage networks.
Beginning in the 1950s, the construction of dams upstreamâmost notably the Sanmen Gorge installationâsignificantly reduced the amount of silt and sediment the Yellow River could transport to its mouth.1
Prior to this, the river was one of the most actively growing deltas globally, as it carried approximately 1.52 billion tons of silt annually to the Bo Hai. The reservoirs created by these dams allowed large quantities of sediment to settle out of the water before reaching the lower course. Consequently, by the 1990s, the delta had shifted from a state of rapid expansion to one of erosion, despite ongoing efforts by the Chinese government to manage deposits through stream diversion.123