Articles | Volume 29, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-507-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-507-2025
Research article
 | 
24 Jan 2025
Research article |  | 24 Jan 2025

Spatially explicit assessment of water stress and potential mitigating solutions in a large water-limited basin: the Yellow River basin in China

Weibin Zhang, Xining Zhao, Xuerui Gao, Wei Liang, Junyi Li, and Baoqing Zhang

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Cited articles

Albers, L. T., Schyns, J. F., Booij, M. J., and Zhuo, L.: Blue water footprint caps per sub-catchment to mitigate water scarcity in a large river basin: The case of the Yellow River in China, J. Hydrol., 603, 126992, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126992, 2021. 
Bryan, B. A., Gao, L., Ye, Y., Sun, X., Connor, J. D., Crossman, N. D., Stafford-Smith, M., Wu, J., He, C., Yu, D., Liu, Z., Li, A., Huang, Q., Ren, H., Deng, X., Zheng, H., Niu, J., Han, G., and Hou, X.: China's response to a national land-system sustainability emergency, Nature, 559, 193–204, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0280-2, 2018. 
Chen, S., Zhang, L., Liu, B., Yi, H., Su, H., Kharrazi, A., Jiang, F., Lu, Z., Crittenden, J. C., and Chen, B.: Decoupling wastewater-related greenhouse gas emissions and water stress alleviation across 300 cities in China is challenging yet plausible by 2030, Nat. Water, 1, 534–546, https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00087-4, 2023. 
Cui, T., Li, Y., Yang, L., Nan, Y., Li, K., Tudaji, M., Hu, H., Long, D., Shahid, M., Mubeen, A., He, Z., Yong, B., Lu, H., Li, C., Ni, G., Hu, C., and Tian, F.: Non-monotonic changes in Asian Water Towers' streamflow at increasing warming levels, Nat. Commun., 14, 1176, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36804-6, 2023. 
Degefu, D. M., Weijun, H., Zaiyi, L., Liang, Y., Zhengwei, H., and Min, A.: Mapping monthly water scarcity in global transboundary basins at country-basin mesh based spatial resolution, Sci. Rep., 8, 2144, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20032-w, 2018. 
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Short summary
The Yellow River basin shows worsening water stress indicators (WSIs) over 1965‒2020. Water withdrawal is the main factor driving WSI before 2000, balanced by water availability. Local water yield and upstream flows are key drivers of sub-basin water availability. Water demand is expected to rise by 6.5 % in the 2030s, creating an 8.36 km³ surface water deficit. Enhanced irrigation efficiency can cut this deficit by 25 %, maintaining the stress level but worsening it for 44.9% of the population.
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