Abstract

Based on the field data from 1950 through 2003 at the stations along the Lower Yellow River, the paper systematically analyses the changes of the bankfull discharge and dominant discharge of the river and their responses to the oncoming runoff at Huayuankou station. It is discovered that the changes of the bankfull discharge and dominant discharge in the Lower Yellow River depend closely on the oncoming runoff at Huayuankou station, and both the bankfull discharge and dominant discharge declined gradually in the past fifty years. Also, the paper exposes that for the Lower Yellow River, the dominant discharge is always smaller than the bankfull discharge, a special phenomenon of the alluvial rivers. An empirical relation between the dominant discharge and bankfull discharge is given in this paper.

Keywords: the Lower Yellow River, bankfull discharge, dominant discharge, response relation