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Yellow River flooding during the past two millennia from historical
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Article  in  Progress in Physical Geography · January 2020

DOI: 10.1177/0309133319899821

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Article
Progress in Physical Geography
1–18
Yellow River flooding during ª The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
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the past two millennia from DOI: 10.1177/0309133319899821
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historical documents

Teng Li
University of Hong Kong, China; Guangzhou University, China
Jinbao Li
University of Hong Kong, China; HKU Shenzhen Institute of Research and Innovation, China
David D. Zhang
Guangzhou University, China

Abstract
The Yellow River has caused suffering to people with its devastating floods throughout human history.
Understanding the occurrence of Yellow River floods and their relationship with climate change is crucial for
sustainable water governance in North China. Here we synthesize historical and climatic records in the
Yellow River basin to investigate their relationship during the past two millennia. Based on historical archives
of river floods and levee breaches, we developed a decadally resolved Yellow River flooding frequency record
from 221 BCE to 1949 CE, which provides a rare chance to perceive the river’s long-term flood dynamics. As
revealed, the Yellow River flooding can be divided into two distinct stages: an early stage of low-frequency
floods from the 220s BCE to the 890s CE; and a late stage of high-frequency floods during the 900s–1940s CE.
A substantial increase in flooding frequency around the 10th century fell within the transition period into the
Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), during which the Yellow River basin featured warm and wet climate
conditions. Coincidentally, human management of the Yellow River intensified as a response to more severe
and frequent floods. The intense river management persisted thereafter and resulted in the super-elevation
of the riverbed, which made the river more prone to flooding. Consequently, the Yellow River flooding
frequency remained high even after entering the Little Ice Age, during which the river basin featured cool
temperature and reduced precipitation. Our study suggests that the dramatic transition from a previous cool,
dry into a warm, wet climate during the MCA period triggered intense human management of river channels
and the establishment of the flood-prone nature of the Yellow River.

Keywords
Yellow river flooding, historical document, climate change, river management, human adaptation

I Introduction
Corresponding author:
The Yellow River or Huang He is the second- Jinbao Li, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
longest river in China, with a total length of SAR, China.
5464 km. The river basin is one key birthplace Email: jinbao@hku.hk
2 Progress in Physical Geography XX(X)
of ancient Chinese culture and is known as “the
cradle of Chinese civilization” (Shu and Finlay-
son, 1993). However, the Yellow River has
caused suffering to people with its violent
floods in history. Hydrometric records are avail-
able only after May 1919 (Li et al., 2019), which
are merely long enough to reveal the Yellow
River flood history and the underlying influence
of natural and human factors. Fortunately,
China has a long history with abundant written
documents about natural and anthropogenic
events such as floods, river management and
agricultural activities. Such documents are
generally continuous and reliable in the den-
sely populated Yellow River basin, and they
have been employed to understand historical
floods, despite most of the analyses being pre-
liminary and less quantitative (YRCC, 1982,
2001). For instance, previous studies using his-
torical archives found that the Yellow River
breached its levees more than 1500 times, with
at least 26 major course shifts since the first
recorded flood in 602 BCE (Meng, 1999;
YRCC, 1959). Severe floods often devastated
houses and farmlands and claimed human
lives, like the flood in 1642 CE that killed
340,000 people in Kaifeng city, with only
3000 residents surviving (Ongley, 2000; Xu
et al., 2005). Therefore, the Yellow River is
also known as “China’s Sorrow” because of the
repeated human suffering caused by its devas-
tating floods (Shu and Finlayson, 1993).
The Yellow River is the most sediment-laden
river in the world, with a mean annual sediment
load of 1.63  109 ton and an average sediment
concentration of 34.83 kg/m3 (YRCC, 1982; Yu
et al., 2013). Because of the large amount of
sediment and continuous levee construction, the
lower Yellow River has become a perched river
with its bed up to 10 m above the surrounding
floodplain (Shu and Finlayson, 1993). Although
river discharge and annual sediment load have
decreased markedly since the 1950s (Wang
et al., 2007; Yang et al., 2004), a risk of levee
breach persists along the Yellow River.
The gauged records indicate that the Yellow
River flow has decreased substantially in recent
decades (Liu et al., 2012; Tang et al., 2008;
Wang et al., 2006; Yang et al., 2004; Zhang
et al., 2009; Zhao et al., 2014; Zheng et al.,
2007). The annual flow decreased even more
rapidly in the lower reaches than the upper and
middle reaches of the Yellow River, with a large
number of zero-flow days in the 1990s and
2000s (Xia et al., 2004; Yang et al., 2004,
2012). Previous studies generally concluded
that both human activities (i.e. water withdrawal
from river channel and dam constructions) and
climate change (i.e. the weakening of the East
Asian monsoon) were responsible for the Yel-
low River flow decline (Miao et al., 2011;
Piao et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2006; Xu, 2005;
Zhao et al., 2014). However, our recent study
suggested that if there were no human disrup-
tion then the Yellow River flow would have
increased to its highest level of the past 1200
years; human activities have caused a loss of
nearly half of the natural flow since the late
1960s and are the main culprit for recent down-
stream flow reduction (Li et al., 2019).
Historical documents and tree-ring records
have been used to describe the long-term
palaeoflood events around the world, with a
focus on the frequency and magnitude of past
floods (Ballesteros-Canovas et al., 2015; Benito
et al., 2005, 2015; Brázdil et al., 2006, 2012;
Kjeldsen et al., 2014; Schulte et al., 2019;
Wilhelm et al., 2019). For example, Balasch
et al. (2019) reconstructed the extreme floods
of the Ebro basin in south-east Europe and the
Iberian Peninsula since 1600 CE based on doc-
umentary research. Based on historical docu-
ments and sedimentary records, Perşoiu and
Perşoiu (2019) presented the first record of past
flood events in Transylvania, east-central Eur-
ope. As for the Yellow River, annual or seasonal
runoff variations at the Sanmenxia gauge station
in the middle Yellow River were reconstructed
based on historical documents about floods,
droughts, water levels and rainfall infiltration
Li et al.
depths (Pan et al., 2013; Wang et al., 1999).
Tree-ring-based flow reconstruction of the
upper Yellow River was developed by Gou
et al. (2007) for the past 593 years, which was
later extended to cover the past 1234 years (Gou
et al., 2010). An attempt to reconstruct the mid-
dle Yellow River flow with tree-rings was made
by Li et al. (2019), which produced a 1200-year
annual flow reconstruction. These empirical
studies offered insights into the long-term var-
iations of the Yellow River flow and their rela-
tionship with climate change and human
activities. Nonetheless, none of them have
explicitly examined the occurrence of the Yel-
low River floods from the perspective of climate
change, although how human activities may
have affected flood dynamics has been dis-
cussed (Chen, 2019; Chen et al., 2012).
Temporal changes of flood frequency at dif-
ferent scales may be linked to different forcings
such as solar activity, atmospheric circulation or
anthropogenic impacts (e.g. Benito et al., 2015;
Wilhelm et al., 2019). Flood frequency changes
at multi-centennial to millennial scales may be
linked to solar activity (Benito et al., 2015; Cor-
ella et al., 2014; Macdonald and Sangster, 2017;
Sabatier et al., 2017). Flood changes at interann-
ual to centennial scales have been tied to atmo-
spheric circulations. Most studies in Europe
have related flood frequency change to the
North Atlantic Oscillation (Foulds and Macklin,
2015; Salgueiro et al., 2013; Schulte et al.,
2015; Wirth et al., 2013), Arctic Oscillation
(López and Francés, 2013) or Western Mediter-
ranean Oscillation (Corella et al., 2016). For the
Pacific domain, changes of flood frequency
have been linked to the Pacific Decadal Oscilla-
tion (Yu et al., 2019) or El Niño-Southern Oscil-
lation (ENSO; Denniston et al., 2015; Ortega
et al., 2019; Xu and Li, 2019). In addition,
extreme events like storm surges have fre-
quently caused floods in the south-western
Netherlands and coastal Belgium (Kraker,
2006). Apart from natural impacts, anthropo-
genic modifications, such as land-use changes,
3
structural river management or intervention,
may also alter flood hazards (Benito et al.,
2010; Hoffmann et al., 2010; Munoz et al.,
2018). As for the Yellow River basin, the fre-
quency of floods and droughts in the catchment
of Jing River on the southern Loess Plateau
(middle reaches of the Yellow River) was syn-
chronous with decadal solar activities (Yu et al.,
2019). Wang and Su (2013) indicated that solar
activities influenced the bank-breaching and
course-shifting events of the lower Yellow
River in the late Holocene. Xu and Li (2019)
found that the lower Yellow River bank
breaches since 924 CE were largely in response
to ENSO activities – in particular, La Niña
events. Previous studies also showed that
human activities, such as deforestation and river
management, may have affected the flood
dynamics (Chen, 2019; Chen et al., 2012). How-
ever, in what ways, to what extents and over
what time scales climate change and human
activities have influenced the Yellow River
flooding are still uncertain.
In this study, we present a 2170-year flood
frequency record of the Yellow River since the
beginning of Imperial China (221 BCE) based
on historical documents. By synthesizing cli-
matic and river management records, we aim
to understand the major features and driving
forces of Yellow River flood frequency changes
over the past two millennia.
II Materials and methods
1 Study area
The Yellow River originates from the Bayan
Har Mountains in Qinghai province, north-
eastern Tibetan Plateau (TP). It runs through
nine provinces and empties into the Bohai Sea,
with a basin area of 752,443 km2 (Figure 1). The
Yellow River is divided into the upper, middle
and lower sections, based on hydrological and
geographical characteristics (Table 1). The
upper reaches range from the river source to
Toudaoguai, extending over 3471 km, with a
4 Progress in Physical Geography XX(X)

Figure 1. Location map of the Yellow River basin. The red symbols denote the sites of moisture records
within or near the Yellow River basin. (a) Dry/wet index in the lower Yellow River basin based on historical
documents (Gong and Hameed, 1991); (b) alkenone-based %C37:4 records from Lake Qinghai (Liu et al.,
2006); and (c) tree-ring-based annual precipitation reconstruction on the north-eastern TP (Yang et al.,
2014).

Table 1. Hydrological and geographical characteristics of the Yellow River.

Upper reach Middle reach Lower reach
Location Source–Toudaoguai Toudaoguai–Huayuankou Huayuankou–Bohai Sea
Length (km) 3471 1206 786
Basin area (km2) 385,996 343,751 22,726
Altitude (m a.s.l.) 4480–1000 1000–110 110–0
P (mm/year) 368 530 670
T ( C) 1*4 8*14 12*14
Wd (km3/year) 22 39 32
Sl (Gt/year) 0.11 0.97 0.8
P: mean annual precipitation; T: annual mean temperature; Wd: annual water discharge; Sl: annual sediment load.
The data for annual water discharge and annual sediment load of the upper, middle and lower reaches are from
Toudaoguai, Huayuankou and Lijin gauge stations, respectively. The annual mean temperature data are from Chen
et al. (2005), while other data are from Wang et al. (2007).

drainage area of 385,996 km 2 . The middle
reaches run through 1206 km from Toudaoguai
to Huayuankou, with a drainage area of 343,751
km2, and the lower reaches travel 786 km from
Huayuankou to the Bohai Sea, with a drainage
area of 22,726 km2 (Wang et al., 2007). The
Yellow River runs through three major land-
scapes, from the TP with an average altitude
of about 4000 m above sea level (a.s.l.), to the
Loess Plateau with altitudes varying from 1000
to 1500 m a.s.l., and finally through the alluvial
plain with altitudes typically below 110 m a.s.l.
(Wang et al., 2007; Yang et al., 2004). The Yel-
low River also crosses different climate
regimes, varying from the arid and semi-arid
climate in the upper and middle reaches to the
Li et al.
semi-humid and humid climate in the lower
reaches of the river (Wang et al., 2007). The
mean annual precipitation increases from 368
mm and 530 mm in the upper and middle
reaches to 670 mm in the lower reaches of the
river, and the annual mean temperature fluctu-
ates from 1–4 C and 8–14 C in the upper and
middle reaches to 12–14 C in the lower reaches
of the river (Chen et al., 2005; Wang et al.,
2007). The annual sediment loads at Toudao-
guai and Huayuankou are 0.11 and 0.97 Gt/year
based on the gauged records, which indicate that
about 90% of the sediment loads are from the
Loess Plateau of the middle reach and only 10%
of the sediment loads are from the upper reach
of the river (Wang et al., 2007). The annual
water discharge of the Yellow River is 32
km3/year at the Lijin gauge station, which only
accounts for *5% of the annual water dis-
charge of the Yangtze River (Wang et al.,
2007; Yang et al., 2006). Therefore, high sedi-
ment load and low water discharge are the two
main features of the Yellow River flow.
2 Historical flooding records
The Yellow River flooding records for this
study are from official historical archives,
which are summarized in two books: General
History of the Yellow River Management
(YRCC, 1982) and The Chronicle of Events of
the Yellow River (YRCC, 2001). To reduce the
likelihood of flood records not being fully col-
lected, another four books that contain the Yel-
low River flood records were used to verify and
supplement our dataset (EBIHCASS, 1988;
Gao, 1997; Meng, 1999; YRCC, 2004). As
noted in the books, merely three discontinuous
flood events were recorded between the Zhou
Dynasty and the Qin Dynasty, with the first
flood recorded in 602 BCE. The lower Yellow
River became fully embanked since 350 BCE as
a result of human intervention (Chen et al.,
2012). Imperial China began in 221 BCE when
the Qin Dynasty was founded by the First
5
Emperor of China, and since then the Yellow
River flooding records were documented offi-
cially and accurately. All flooding events in the
official documents are evidenced with crucial
information such as precise dates, accurate
places and exact impacts. For example, as noted
in “History of Song Dynasty: The Gazetteer of
Five Elements”, a flood that occurred in the
summer of 1117 CE killed more than one mil-
lion people in Cangzhou city (Toqto’a and
Arutu, 1977). The locations of all the floods
were documented on a provincial scale from
221 BCE to 581 CE and were located at city
or village scales since 581 CE of the Sui
Dynasty (YRCC, 1982, 2001).
Based on the aforementioned historical
archives, our Yellow River flooding frequency
record was built by counting the flooding years
over a 10-year interval in Imperial China from
221 BCE to 1949 CE (Figure 2). Only floods
that occurred along the main channel of the Yel-
low River were counted. Although documented
officially and accurately during most of Imper-
ial China, the flooding events during three peri-
ods may bear large uncertainties and should be
interpreted with caution. First, few flooding
records were documented during the period of
304–439 CE because of the nomadic occupation
of the lower Yellow River region. Second,
troops of the Song Dynasty broke the river levee
in 1128 CE to resist the advancing Jurchen
army. The Yellow River had a major shift of its
course to the Huai River and drained into the
Yellow Sea, and few management activities
were conducted thereafter. Therefore, few
floods were recorded during the 1130s–1270s
CE. Third, the flooding records were limited
during 1855–1868 CE when the Yellow River
was largely unembanked after a major avulsion
in 1855 CE (Chen et al., 2012).
Both natural and human-induced floods
occurred. As our main purpose is to understand
the influence of climate change on river flood-
ing, the human-induced floods were identified
but excluded in the final compilation, such as
6 Progress in Physical Geography XX(X)

Figure 2. Comparison of the Yellow River flooding records with (red) and without (blue) human-induced
floods from 221 BCE to 1949 CE. Vertical shading denotes the three periods during which there might be
large uncertainties in the recorded number of flooding events.

the war-induced floods in year 759, 896, 918,
923, 1128, 1232, 1234, 1368, 164 and 1938 CE
(Figure 2). There were no floods after 1956 CE
because of the effective levee structure and dam
construction after the establishment of the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China in 1949 CE (Chen et al.,
2012). Therefore, the period of 1949 CE to the
present was not included in this study.
3 Analytical methods
To detect the influence of natural climate
change on the Yellow River floods, we com-
pared the flooding frequency record with
proxy-based records of the TP temperature
(He et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2002; Zhang
et al., 2014), Northern Hemisphere (NH) tem-
perature (Christiansen and Ljungqvist, 2012;
D’Arrigo et al., 2006; Esper et al., 2002; Hegerl
et al., 2007; Kobashi et al., 2011; Liu et al.,
2009; Ljungqvist, 2010; Mann et al., 2008;
Moberg et al., 2005; Pei et al., 2017; Tan
et al., 2003; Yang et al., 2002), Asian summer
monsoon (Tan et al., 2011) and solar activities
(Perry and Hsu, 2000). The Asian summer mon-
soon signal was represented by a detrended
Huangye cave stalagmites d18O record, which
shows the monsoon precipitation variability in
the semi-humid region of northern China (Tan
et al., 2011). Details of these data sets are shown
in Table 2. All the data were linearly interpo-
lated into annual resolution and normalized with
z-score. The time series of TP and NH tempera-
tures were calculated by averaging all data
available. To understand the human influence
on Yellow River flood frequency, we compared
the flood records with the river management
records with a 20-year resolution, which were
compiled based on river management statistics
in two books: The Chronicle of the Yellow River
(Shen et al., 1935) and The Chronicle of Events
of the Yellow River (YRCC, 2001). The Yellow
River management records were produced by
counting the number of levee construction
events (e.g. construction, maintenance and
repairs of levees) and flood prevention and reg-
ulation events (e.g. damming, diversion, spill-
way, soil and water conservation) (Chen et al.,
2012). As the technology or hydraulic engineer-
ing used to embank the Yellow River had
evolved through the Chinese Dynasties, a sim-
ple count of the events may not fully reveal the
scale and extent of human management prac-
tices, but serves as an approximate manifesta-
tion of human intervention. In addition, wavelet
Li et al. 7

Table 2. Proxy records of the TP and NH temperatures, Asian summer monsoon and solar activities.
Data Location Proxy type Time span Resolution Reference
TP temperatures China Multiple 1 CE–1900 CE Decadal Yang et al., 2002
China Tree ring 679 CE–2012 CE
Annual Zhang et al., 2014
China Alkenone 624 BCE–1967 CE
Annual to He et al., 2013
decadal
NH temperatures Greenland Ice core 2000 BCE–2000 CE Multi-decadal Kobashi et al., 2011
China Multiple 1 CE–1900 CE Decadal Yang et al., 2002
China Tree ring 188 BCE–2000 CE Annual Liu et al., 2009
China Stalagmite 665 BCE–1985 CE Annual to Tan et al., 2003
decadal
NH Tree ring 831 CE–1992 CE Annual to Esper et al., 2002
decadal
NH Multiple 1 CE–1979 CE Decadal to Moberg et al., 2005
centennial
NH Tree ring 714 CE–1994 CE Annual to D’Arrigo et al., 2006
decadal
NH Tree ring 558 CE–1960 CE Annual to Hegerl et al., 2007
decadal
NH Multiple 1 CE–1994 CE Decadal to Mann et al., 2008
centennial
NH Multiple 1 CE–1900 CE Decadal Ljungqvist, 2010
NH Multiple 4000 BCE–2000 CE Annual Pei et al., 2017
NH Multiple 1 CE–1973 CE Annual to Christiansen and
decadal Ljungqvist, 2012
Asian summer China Stalagmite 138 CE–2002 CE Annual to Tan et al., 2011
monsoon decadal
Solar activity Solar-output 400 BCE–2000 CE Decadal Perry and Hsu, 2000
model

analysis was used to describe the spectral prop-
erties of the Yellow River flooding (Torrence
and Compo, 1998).
III Results
Our compilation shows a 2170-year flooding
history of the Yellow River from 221 BCE to
1949 CE (Figure 3(a)). The floods occurred in a
total of 519 years over the period of 2170 years.
Two distinct stages can be identified based on
the flood frequency record: an early stage of
low-frequency floods from the 220s BCE to the
890s CE; and a late stage of high-frequency
floods during the 900s–1940s CE (Figure 3(a)
and Table 3). During the early low-frequency
flood period, 63 (55.8%) of the 113 decades had
no floods, and 27 (23.9%) and 18 (15.9%)
decades had one or two years with floods,
respectively. Floods occurred in no less than
three years in five decades (270s, 560s, 690s,
720s and 750s CE), which account for 4.4% of
the low-frequency flood period. During the late
high-frequency flood period, 77 (73.3%) of the
105 decades had two to six years with floods.
Thirteen decades had no less than seven years
with floods (960s, 970s, 1080s, 1320s, 1340s,
1450s, 1490s, 1570s, 1660s, 1670s, 1880s,
1900s and 1920s CE), which account for
12.4% of the high-frequency flood period.
Based on the two distinct stages of low- and
high-flood frequency, the flood frequency
8 Progress in Physical Geography XX(X)

Figure 3. Yellow River flooding frequency records (a) and the river management records (b) from 221 BCE
to 1949 CE. The river management activities include both levee constructions and river regulations and have
a 20-year resolution (unit: number of events). The dashed lines denote the start or the end of the Chinese
dynasties.

Table 3. Count of decades with various numbers of record was split into two periods: pre-900 CE
flood years during the 220s BCE–890s CE and 900s– and post-900 CE. The results of wavelet power
1940s CE. spectrum analysis for the Yellow River flooding
during the two periods are shown in Figure 4.
220s BCE–890s
The black line indicates the cone of influence
CE 900s–1940s CE
beyond which the edge effect may distort the
Flood count Count Percent Count Percent results (Torrence and Compo, 1998). For the
Yellow River flooding pre-900 CE, multi-
0 63 55.8% 10 9.5%
1 27 23.9% 5 4.8%
decadal to multi-centennial signals can be found
2 18 15.9% 12 11.4% from the second to the ninth century. Multi-
3 4 3.5% 12 11.4% decadal power is more concentrated within the
4 – – 14 13.3% 30–80-year band, while multi-centennial
5 1 0.9% 19 18.1% power exists within a 150–300-year band. Dur-
6 – – 20 19.0% ing the post-900 CE period, the power is more
7 – – 5 4.8% concentrated within the 100-year band from
8 – – 5 4.8% the ninth to the 14th century and from the
9 – – 2 1.9% 17th to the 20th century, which indicates that
10 – – 1 1.0%
the Yellow River flooding frequency varies
Total 113 100% 105 100%
mostly on a centennial timescale. A strong
Li et al.
Figure 4. Wavelet power spectrum of the Yellow River flooding using the Morlet wavelet during the periods
of (a) pre-900 CE and (b) post-900 CE. The thick black line denotes the cone of influence beyond which the
edge effect may distort the results. Shading with contours indicates the 95% confidence level.
power signal also exists in a 200–300-year
band from the 11th to the 18th century, which
suggests that the Yellow River flooding may
have had a multi-centennial periodicity during
this period. However, this result should be
interpreted with caution.
IV Discussion
1 Yellow River flooding variability
The Yellow River flood frequency was low
from the 220s BCE to 850s CE, during which
floods occurred, on average, one year per
decade. The Yellow River flooding record was
compared with moisture records in the Yellow
River basin and nearby regions (Figure 5), and
with the TP and NH temperatures, Asian sum-
mer monsoon and solar activities (Figure 6).
During the cold period from the 120s BCE to
the 660s CE, the low-frequency floods were
coincident with the dry climate of the Yellow
River basin on multi-centennial scales based on
moisture records in the headwater area and the
lower river basin (Gong and Hameed, 1991;
Yang et al., 2014). Few human management
actions were conducted over this period
(Figure 3(b)). However, based on a 0.8
9
percentile threshold, one flood-rich period
could be found in the 270s CE, which was con-
sistent with the wet climate during this period
based on the moisture records (Figure 5).
Flood frequency increased dramatically and
remained high from the 860s to 1450s CE,
except for the period of 1130s–1270s CE during
which there was a lack of historical records. The
flood-rich period fell largely within the Medi-
eval Climate Anomaly (MCA) period (Diaz
et al., 2011; Graham et al., 2011; Hughes and
Diaz, 1994; Mann et al., 2009). Based on the
historical information, most floods from the
860s to 1450s CE occurred in summer, which
accounted for 57.9% of the total flood events
recorded with monthly information. The higher
occurrence of floods over this period coincided
with the warm and wet climate in the basin
(Figures 5 and 6). Therefore, heavy summer
rainfall in the basin may have led to an increase
in the Yellow River runoff and the frequency of
floods during this period. Correspondingly,
human management of the Yellow River
increased substantially, largely as a response
to more severe and frequent floods as hinted
by their lead–lag relationship (Figure 3). The
intense river management persisted thereafter
10 Progress in Physical Geography XX(X)

Figure 5. Comparison of Yellow River flood records with moisture records in the Yellow River basin and
nearby regions. (a) Yellow River flood records in this study and associated flood-rich periods. Black and grey
shading denotes floods exceeding 0.9 and 0.8 percentile threshold, respectively. (b) Dry/wet index in the
lower Yellow River basin based on historical documents (Gong and Hameed, 1991). (c) Alkenone-based
%C37:4 records from Lake Qinghai (Liu et al., 2006). (d) Tree-ring-based annual precipitation reconstruction
on the north-eastern TP (Yang et al., 2014). The bold line in (b)–(d) denotes a 100-year Fast Fourier
Transform (FFT) filter. Vertical shading (light pink) denotes wet period based on the %C37:4 records from
Lake Qinghai. MCA period was shown between the two vertical dash lines (950–1400 CE; Diaz et al., 2011).

and resulted in the super-elevation of the riv-
erbed, which geomorphologically made the
river more prone to flooding. Therefore, human
management of the Yellow River floods trans-
formed into a loop of positive feedback: fre-
quent floods and levee breaches led to
increased river management and elevated riv-
erbed, which, in turn, caused more floods and
breaches (Chen et al., 2012). Previous studies on
other river systems also indicated that human
interventions, such as river management or
land-use changes, may accelerate flood fre-
quency and change geomorphic regime of the
fluvial systems by altering sedimentary and
hydrologic processes (Benito et al., 2010; Hoff-
mann et al., 2010; Hudson et al., 2008; Munoz
Li et al. 11

Figure 6. Comparison of (a) Yellow River floods and flood-rich periods with (b)TP temperature, (c) NH
temperature, (d) Asian summer monsoon and (e) total solar outputs. The bold line in (b)–(e) denotes a 100-
year FFT filter. Vertical shading denotes cold (pale turquoise) and warm (light pink) periods based on the TP
temperature reconstruction. MCA period was shown between the two vertical dashed lines (950–1400 CE;
Diaz et al., 2011). Data sources of the TP and NH temperatures, Asian summer monsoon and total solar
outputs are shown in Table 2.

et al., 2018), consistent with the positive human– the cool and dry climate in the Yellow River
river feedback loop of the Yellow River. basin (Figures 5 and 6). The dry environment
During the period from the 1460s to 1800s was also supported by the precipitation records
CE, the flood frequency remained high under in the Longxi region of Gansu province based
12
on historical drought and flood records (Tan
et al., 2008, 2010). Owing to the positive feed-
back between human management and super-
elevation of the riverbed, the Yellow River
levees were more prone to breach than before,
although precipitation and river flow were low
during this period. The effects of human inter-
vention on floods were further supported by the
wavelet results of Yellow River floods during
1400–1600 CE, during which the spectral power
of the 100-year period diminished (Figure 4(b)).
During 1860–1949 CE, the flood-rich period
was coincident with the intensified Asian sum-
mer monsoon under global warming (Figure 6),
although human management affected the
flooding frequency as well.
2 Driving forces of the Yellow River flooding
As noted above, human management played a
major role in the transition of the Yellow River
from low floods during the 220s BCE–890s CE
to high floods during the 900s–1940s CE. Due
to the increase in rainfall and river flow around
the MCA period, humans were forced to con-
struct the levees and regulate the flow in order to
reduce the risk of flooding. The lead–lag rela-
tionship between flooding frequency increase
and human management was evident around the
10th century (Figure 3). Meanwhile, the inven-
tion of flexible curved beam plows made mas-
sive plowing on hillslopes possible, which
facilitated agricultural development and popu-
lation increase, but intensified deforestation and
loess soil erosion (Chen, 2019; Chen et al.,
2012). High rainfall during the MCA period also
benefitted agricultural practice on steep hill-
slopes but exacerbated topsoil erosion. Alto-
gether, high rainfall, land over-reclamation
and intense soil erosion changed the Yellow
River into a sediment-laden river with a high
rate of siltation, which, combined with contin-
uous levee construction, transformed the lower
Yellow River into a perched river above the
surrounding floodplain. The positive feedback
Progress in Physical Geography XX(X)
between human management and super-
elevation of riverbed continued thereafter, which
caused the flooding frequency to remain high
during the cool, dry period of the Little Ice Age.
To test the relationship between the flooding
frequency and human management of the
Yellow River on multi-centennial time scales,
correlation coefficients between flooding fre-
quency and human management during the two
distinct periods of 220s BCE–890s CE and 900s
–1940s CE were calculated with 20-year resolu-
tions. Non-significant correlations (p > 0.1)
were found in both periods, suggesting that
there was no clear relationship between river
management and river flooding at multi-
centennial time scales. Nonetheless, human
management may have affected the Yellow
River flooding frequency on multi-decadal time
scales. For instance, the number of floods was
low during the 1130s–1270s CE and 1850s–
1860s CE when few management activities
were conducted. There was a relatively low-
flood period from the 1680s to 1850s CE. The
period of 1662–1795 CE saw great prosperity of
the Qing Dynasty, with long-term stability and a
strong economy (Rowe, 2009). Under the orders
of Emperor Kangxi in 1662 CE, the Yellow
River management system was much improved,
with many hydraulic methods applied to
decrease the super-elevation of the riverbed
(Chen et al., 2012). The positive feedback loop
of the Yellow River floods was weakened by
these effective river management, and the
floods were reduced over this period.
In addition to human factors, we compared
the Yellow River flooding with the Asian sum-
mer monsoon and solar activities (Figure 6(d)
and (e)), which may help understand the
mechanisms of the Yellow River flooding on
centennial to multi-centennial time scales. Pre-
cipitation variability in the Yellow River basin
is mainly controlled by the Asian summer mon-
soon (Morrill et al., 2003; Wang et al., 2005).
On multi-centennial scales, the weak (strong)
Asian summer monsoon generally coincided
Li et al.
with the cold (warm) climate and low (high)
flood frequency during the periods of third–
ninth (10th–14th) century, respectively (Fig-
ure 6). Significant correlations can be found
between the Asian summer monsoon and Yel-
low River flood frequency over these two peri-
ods with 10-year resolutions (p < 0.01). The
intensified Asian summer monsoon would
transport more water vapor into the Yellow
River basin, increasing heavy precipitation and
river runoff and, thus, the high frequency of
floods (Hirabayashi et al., 2008; Xu and Li,
2019). Wang and Su (2013) also found that
heavy rainfall in the middle Yellow River basin
was highly correlated with the occurrence of the
lower Yellow River breaching and course-
shifting events.
Many studies showed that the Earth’s climate
was strongly influenced by solar activities
(Bond et al., 2001; Hong et al., 2000; Steinhilber
et al., 2009; Wanner et al., 2008). The mechan-
ism of solar activity on climate, known as the
“bottom-up mechanism”, is related to the ocean
heat absorption from the sun, which may affect
evaporation and moisture variability (Cubasch
et al., 1997, 2006; Gray et al., 2010). The Asian
monsoon, largely driven by the land–sea ther-
mal contrast between the Eurasian continent and
the tropical oceans, is also strongly influenced
by solar activities (Cheng et al., 2006). The
occurrence of breaching and course-shifting
events in the lower Yellow River had a positive
correlation with the solar activity (Wang and
Su, 2013), which is consistent with our results
showing that strong solar activity and intensi-
fied Asian summer monsoon could increase the
occurrence of Yellow River floods on multi-
centennial scales. As shown in Figure 6, strong
solar outputs generally coincided with warmer
TP/NH temperatures, strengthened Asian sum-
mer monsoon intensity and high flood fre-
quency from the tenth to the 14th century, and
vice versa for the weak solar activity period
from the third to the ninth century. During these
two periods, solar activity was correlated
13
significantly with the Yellow River flood fre-
quency with 10-year resolution (p < 0.01). Dur-
ing the period of the 15th to the 19th century, the
solar activity and Asian summer monsoon were
weak, while the Yellow River floods were still
in high-frequency phase (Figure 6). As noted
earlier, this is because the Yellow River levees
remained prone to breach due to the positive
feedback between human management and
super-elevation of the riverbed.
To sum up, solar radiation, TP/NH tempera-
tures and the Asian summer monsoon have
influenced the Yellow River flooding on cen-
tennial to multi-centennial time scales over the
past two millennia. The warm and wet condi-
tions around the MCA period triggered the pos-
itive feedback between human management and
river flooding, which led to a major transition of
the Yellow River from low floods during the
220s BCE–890s CE to high floods during the
900s–1940s CE.
V Conclusion
We presented a 2170-year Yellow River flood
frequency record based on historical documents
from 221 BCE to 1949 CE, which provided a
rare chance to perceive the river’s long-term
flood dynamics and its relationship with human
intervention and climate change. Two distinct
stages of Yellow River flooding were identified:
an early stage of low-frequency floods from the
220s BCE to the 890s CE; and a late stage of
high-frequency floods during the 900s–1940s
CE. During the 220s BCE–890s CE, the low-
frequency floods coincided with generally cool
and dry climate in the Yellow River basin, and
the river management was relatively low. The
floods increased substantially during the MCA
period that featured generally warm and wet
conditions in the Yellow River basin, and the
river management increased correspondingly,
largely as a response to more severe and fre-
quent floods. Basin-wide precipitation was low
during the late 15th to 19th century, and so was
14
the Yellow River flow. However, the riverbed
had been super-elevated and more prone to
flooding, and there was no decrease in flooding
frequency owing to the positive feedback
between human management and river flood-
ing. Solar activities, TP/NH temperatures and
the Asian summer monsoon had great
influences on the Yellow River flooding on
multi-centennial time scales, while it was
human management that largely transformed
the human–river relationship and resulted in the
establishment of the flood-prone nature of the
Yellow River around the MCA period. Our his-
torical flooding record provides a better under-
standing of the temporal pattern of Yellow
River flood frequency and the underlying cli-
matic and anthropogenic drivers. Future work
should explore the long-term occurrence of
floods and droughts on a basin scale, which will
help identify the spatiotemporal uniformity and
disparity of climate variability and their impacts
on Yellow River floods and human society.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of inter-
est with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following
financial support for the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article: This research was
funded by the National Key Research and Develop-
ment Program of China (No. 2018YFA0605601) and
Hong Kong Research Grants Council (No.
17303017).
ORCID iD
Teng Li https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3724-5349
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