The Yellow River, revered as the Mother River of the Chinese nation, is known worldwide for its distinctive natural conditions characterized by low water discharge, high sediment load, and an imbalanced water-sediment relationship. Historically, recurrent flooding inflicted profound disasters on the Chinese nation. Over the past eight decades, under the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China, generations of professionals engaged in Yellow River governance have adhered to science-based and systematic river governance and achieved remarkable progress in flood control, water resources regulation, implementation of the Water-Sediment Regulation Scheme (WSRS), soil and water conservation, and ecological and environmental protection. These achievements have provided strong support for ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin. Building on a comprehensive review of these achievements, this study systematically assesses the projected evolution of runoff, sediment, and ecological conditions in the Yellow River over the next 30-50 years. In response to increasing climate uncertainty, declining water inflow, persistently low sediment inflow, and increasingly stringent ecological protection requirements, Yellow River governance in the new era should be advanced around the goal of “making the Yellow River a river of happiness that benefits the people” and coordinated across four strategic dimensions: ensuring flood safety, optimizing water allocation, stabilizing sediment dynamics, and revitalizing basin ecosystems. Specifically, flood resources should be proactively managed under the “Three Types of Floods” framework; The long-term water resources challenge should be addressed through the “Six Waters” approach; Water-sediment balance should be achieved through integrated and dynamic regulation across the basin-river channel-estuary continuum;  High-quality ecological protection and restoration should be promoted through a coordinated approach combining water-based development constraints with environmental quality improvement. The ultimate goal is to achieve a progressive transformation from a River of Safety to a River of Life and ultimately to a River of Happiness.

To construct a theoretical analytical framework for driving the synergistic evolution of ecological security and food security through agricultural land use transition, this study systematically identifies the transition characteristics of agricultural land use in the Yellow River Basin and their impact mechanisms on the synergistic evolution of ecological security and food security. By integrating a three-tier coupled diagnostic framework of “macro-stage identification-meso-nonlinear diagnosis-micro-behavior adoption,” the study calculates the indices of agricultural land use transition, ecological security, food security, and their synergy. Using the Pettitt test, Mann-Kendall trend test, GAM model, and Logit model, it analyzes the long-term changes in these indices in the Yellow River Basin from 1949 to 2024. The findings are as follows: a) Agricultural land use transition and the synergistic evolution of ecological security and food security in the Yellow River Basin exhibit significant stage-transition characteristics, with 1978, 1999, and 2018 as key mutation nodes; The synergy index increased from 0.252 in 1978 to 0.617 in 2024, indicating a shift from long-term imbalance to synergistic improvement in the relationship between ecological security and food security. b) Agricultural land use transition has a significant nonlinear impact on the synergy index; A response threshold of 0.55 exists between water resource security levels and the synergy index; The smoothing function corresponding to the average cultivated land management scale per household shows an inverted U-shaped curve, peaking in the 5-7 hm² range. c) Participation in technical training, membership in cooperatives, and access to green subsidies increase the probability of farmers adopting green land use behaviors by 15.7, 11.4 and 9.3 percentage points, respectively, suggesting that institutional support and organized services are critical linkages between macro-level land use transition and micro-level behavioral responses. Future efforts should adhere to the principles of land allocation and development based on water availability, implement zoning regulations, and establish a tripartite micro-transmission mechanism integrating “technical services-organizational support-policy incentives” to shift agricultural land use from a singular yield-oriented approach to one driven by the synergy of ecological security and food security.

The flow and sediment regimes of the Yellow River have undergone a fundamental shift. The basin’s long-standing characteristic of “low flow with high sediment load” has now given way to a persistent condition better described as “low flow with low sediment”—a reality that no longer aligns with the planning framework and flood-operation strategies established under previous assumptions. This paper argues that as the Yellow River Basin moves toward high-quality development in the coming period, its governance faces five pressing challenges: a) Current flood-design parameters deviate from actual conditions, resulting in an oversized flood-control layout. b) Despite a sharp decline in incoming sediment to the reservoir, the operation of Sanmenxia Reservoir remains unchanged, which unduly marginalizes its functional potential. c) While the main channel of the Lower Yellow River continues to incise, the “suspended river” above the surrounding ground remains an enduring threat. d) The bottleneck constraint of the river narrows in the lower reach is prominent, making it difficult to liberate the flood detention and storage zones under relatively conservative design flood conditions. e) The vast number of check dams built across the middle and upper reaches have played a substantial role in trapping sediment, yet many are prone to breaching and pose considerable ecological concerns. In response to these key issues, this study proposes a set of targeted, actionable measures: First, revise the existing flood-design criteria and the annual average sediment load entering the lower reaches, so that the downstream flood-mitigation system can be placed on a more rational footing. Second, optimize the coordinated operation of Sanmenxia and Xiaolangdi Reservoirs to more fully tap the value of Sanmenxia Reservoir. Third, promote community-based hydraulic sand-dredging for riverbed lowering—an approach that requires limited state investment and could potentially transform the suspended river into a below-grade channel. Fourth, physically widen the Aishan narrows to remove a critical bottleneck and reverse the passive defensive posture in the lower reaches. Fifth, scale up the application of new check-dam construction and reinforcement technologies that fundamentally alter the seepage-failure mode of conventional designs, thereby ensuring structural integrity and safety.

To address the difficulty in characterizing the directional effects in the stability evaluation of surrounding rock for pressurized water conveyance tunnels under complex topographic conditions, a multi-directional stability criterion for surrounding rock was proposed. Based on the fundamental concept of the Norwegian criterion, the stability analysis of surrounding rock was extended from vertical overburden-controlled conditions to the mechanical analysis of rock columns in arbitrary directions. Considering the self-weight of rock columns, internal water pressure, seepage effects, and rock mass frictional resistance, an analytical expression for the minimum rock cover thickness was derived. Subsequently, a minimum rock cover cone model was established, and a unified multi-directional stability evaluation method was developed to comprehensively assess the cover conditions in all directions along the tunnel axis. The proposed method was verified through theoretical analysis and numerical simulations under a benchmark case, followed by a parametric sensitivity analysis. The results indicate that the minimum rock cover thickness exhibits an evident non-monotonic variation with direction, and the most unfavorable direction is located within the inclined range. Internal water pressure and internal friction angle primarily affect the magnitude of the required cover thickness but have limited influence on the distribution characteristics of the most unfavorable direction.

The regulation of sediment-rich rivers constitutes a major scientific challenge for global water resources management and sustainable watershed development. The Yellow River is characterized by its core natural attributes: limited runoff, abundant sediment, separate sources of water and sediment, and an inharmonious water-sediment relationship. Since the launch of people-centered Yellow River governance, the strategies for Yellow River regulation have evolved from localized passive defense to systematic governance. From the perspective of watershed systems, exploratory research is carried out on theories and key technologies for Yellow River sediment regulation in the new era. Theoretically, the Engineering Cybernetics of Yellow River Sediment takes the whole process of sediment generation and transport as the research object. It establishes a four-level hierarchical control structure covering sediment entering the Yellow River, reservoir sediment, channel sediment and estuarine sediment, quantifies the coordination degree of water-sediment relationship, and introduces the watershed development index and sediment engineering regulation index to realize quantitative evaluation of regulation effectiveness. Technically, key technical systems are collaboratively integrated, including long-term sediment-retaining warping dams against breach failure, reservoir operation of storing clear water and regulating sediment-laden flow, zoned governance of three beach zones, conjugate flow path control, and water-sediment regulation via multi-reservoir group joint operation. Active regulation through “sediment retention, flow regulation, sediment discharge, floodplain release and sediment dredging” is thereby achieved. In the future, it is necessary to continuously modernize the system and capacity of Yellow River sediment governance, so as to provide theoretical references and engineering practices for the regulation of sediment-rich rivers worldwide.

This paper systematically reviews the research course of the water environment in key reservoirs of the Yellow River over the 80 years of Yellow River governance by the people (1946-2026), dividing it into four stages: the water-sediment engineering-dominated stage, the problem emergence of sediment deposition and water environment problems stage, the stage of comprehensive water-sediment regulation and water quality modeling exploration, and the ecology-prioritized and digital-empowered stage. It reveals the profound transformation of the research paradigm from single water quality assessment to multi-objective coordination. In view of the Yellow River’s unique characteristic of “high sediment concentration” and its complex giant system, five frontier scientific issues requiring urgent attention are extracted: the cross-medium coupling mechanism of sediment-pollutants under complex flow-sediment dynamics, the ecological risk of emerging pollutants in sedimentary environments, the evolution of greenhouse gas interface fluxes in reservoirs under “dual-carbon” goals, the cumulative eco-hydrological effects of cascade operation, and the multi-scale physical field coupling simulation within the digital twin framework. This paper prospectively envisions the development blueprint for water environment research of key reservoirs in the Yellow River Basin during the intelligent deepening period of Water Conservancy 4.0 (2026-2035) and the symbiotic water conservancy period of Water Conservancy 5.0 (2036-2060).

The irrigation districts in the Yellow River Basin are large in scale and consume significant amounts of water, making the efficient use of water resources crucial for ecological protection and high-quality development in the region. Under the current background of digital twin irrigation district construction, the modernization of irrigation districts has shifted from individual facility upgrades to the coordinated advancement of digitization, automation, and intelligence. However, practical efforts remain largely focused on equipment configuration, monitoring operations, and platform display, lacking a classification standard for assessing levels of modernization. Drawing on the task and responsibility logic of automotive driving automation grading, a L0-L5 classification system for digital twin irrigation district modernization is proposed, with L1-L3 designated as the near-and mid-term construction priorities. Criteria at each level are refined across seven dimensions: object scale, perception completeness, solution generation capability, execution coordination, risk resilience, responsibility boundaries, and benefit verifiability. An evaluation of publicly available data from representative diversion-based irrigation districts in the Yellow River Basin indicates that: Most digital twin irrigation district constructions are at the L1 level; A few pilot irrigation districts have achieved L2-level capabilities in certain canal sections; L3-level implementation requires evidence from continuous operational records and anomaly intervention cases.

Designed sediment load is a key parameter for major planning and key project demonstration in the Yellow River Basin, typically represented by the multi-year average sediment load at main stem and tributary cross-sections over a future period. The duration of the future period for designed sediment load shall be determined based on the demands of target applications. For major water control projects or river-crossing structures, the period should exceed the designed service lifespan of the project; For the demonstration of alternative sea-outlet channels or the formulation of sediment storage space plans for floodplain areas, a time scale of hundreds of years shall be adopted. For the future 30-50 years designed sediment load, hydrological and genetic methods are recommended for joint estimation and cross-validation to determine a reasonable range. For centennial or multi-centennial estimates, phased calculation is suggested by dividing the period into the short term (within 50 years) and the long term (beyond 50 years). Long-term estimation should focus on the sediment reduction effects of terraces, man-made horizontal terraces, and large Qinghai-Tibet Plateau reservoirs such as Longyangxia.

Addressing the optimal installed capacity configuration of basin-scale hydro-wind-photovoltaic hybrid power generation base under China’s “dual carbon” goals, it is of great significance and practical value to conduct multi-objective coordinated optimization of installed capacity by comprehensively considering power generation benefits, ecological benefits, and extreme climate risks. Taking the Cihaxia hydro-wind-photovoltaic hybrid power generation base in the Upper Yellow River as the study area, this study clarifies the evolution characteristics of hydro, wind, and photovoltaic resources and the low-output characteristics under extreme climate conditions, constructs a hydro-wind-photovoltaic-storage capacity optimization model considering power generation benefits, ecological benefits, and extreme climate risks, and selects the optimal installed capacity scheme using a multi-criteria decision analysis method. The results show that: a) During 2035-2065, the annual average outputs of wind power and photovoltaic power both exhibit fluctuating downward trends. b) Under the four SSP scenarios, the annual average frequency of low-output events induced by extreme climate conditions ranges from 43.68 to 46.29 events. c) Under the condition of 4 200 MW hydropower capacity, the recommended optimal installed capacity schemes consists of 1 000 MW wind power, 5 000 MW photovoltaic capacity, and 1 000-2 000 MW·h energy storage. Compared with the benchmark scheme, the optimal schemes reduce the average curtailment rate and loss-of-load rate by 5.54% and 6.65%, respectively, decrease the power shortage caused by extreme climate conditions by 60.4%, and increase the carbon emission reduction per 10 000 yuan of investment by 53.01 t, thereby achieving coordinated improvements in operational economy, climate adaptability, and emission reduction capability of the hybrid power generation base.

Over the past eight decades of comprehensive management, the Yellow River has undergone a historic transformation from frequent breaches and flooding to relative stability. However, the issue of water-sediment imbalance remains unresolved, and the “suspended river” continues to operate at a high level, with the basin’s long-term stability still facing potential risks and challenges. Soil and water conservation, by reducing sediment inflow into the Yellow River, represents a fundamental solution for ensuring the river’s long-term stability from the source. However, in long-term Yellow River management practices, engineering measures for flood control have been prioritized due to the urgency of flood prevention and disaster reduction. These measures are akin to “treating acute illnesses”, while fundamental, source-based soil and water conservation efforts, which are akin to “treating chronic illnesses”, still require strengthening. Achieving long-term stability of the Yellow River hinges on coordinating the water-sediment relationship, which fundamentally depends on effectively controlling severe soil erosion on the Loess Plateau. In essence, soil and water conservation represents a generalized water-sediment regulation approach centered on source control. By altering runoff and sediment generation processes and optimizing the structure of water-sediment allocation, it fundamentally alleviates the structural contradiction of “abundant sediment with scarce water, disparate sources of water and sediment, and mismatched water-sediment processes” and serves as a key pathway to maintaining the scouring-deposition balance. At present, soil and water conservation on the Loess Plateau has entered a new stage characterized by structural optimization and functional enhancement. The focus of governance should shift from expansion-oriented incremental construction to stock optimization driven by structural improvement and functional upgrading. Future efforts should focus on precision governance in stubborn erosion areas, strengthen research on gully-slope hydraulic-gravity coupling erosion mechanisms and control technologies, and systematically promote quality improvement, efficiency enhancement, and standard upgrading of existing soil and water conservation projects. The governance model should further shift from prioritizing construction to balancing construction with management, bolster disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities under extreme rainfall scenarios, and establish a prevention and control system that coordinates responses to both normal and extreme events to enhance sediment control capacity at the source. In summary, the fundamental and strategic role of soil and water conservation in Yellow River Basin management must be further reinforced, serving as the core support for harmonizing water-sediment relationships and ensuring the long-term stability of the Yellow River, thereby providing a solid foundation for promoting ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin.

Taking the 11 provincial-level regions of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and 9 provincial-level regions of the Yellow River Basin as sample units, with the research period spanning 2002 to 2017, this study constructed a multi-regional input-output model based on input-output table data released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China. It calculated the flows of water, carbon, and ecological footprints among industrial sectors within each region and among different regions, and systematically revealed the flow characteristics of the three types of footprints across two major national strategic regions. The findings provide a scientific basis for formulating differentiated and targeted green development strategies for the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Yellow River Basin. The main research conclusions are as follows: a) During the study period, in the inter-sectoral flows of water, carbon, and ecological footprints in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the outflow of agricultural water footprint was the largest but showed a declining trend; The outflow of carbon footprint from energy-related industrial sectors was relatively large, while the inflow of carbon footprint from the service sector and construction sector was relatively large; The flow of ecological footprint along the industrial chain continued to increase; The inflow of ecological footprint from heavy chemical industrial sectors was relatively large, while the outflow of ecological footprint from the service sector was relatively large. b) During the study period, in the inter-sectoral flows of water, carbon, and ecological footprints in the Yellow River Basin, the outflows of agricultural water footprint and ecological footprint were consistently large; Agriculture had long been exporting ecological footprint to industrial sectors such as food processing, textiles, and metal smelting; The outflow of carbon footprint from energy-related industrial sectors was relatively large; The inflow and outflow scales of ecological footprint from heavy chemical and equipment manufacturing industrial sectors expanded simultaneously. c) During the study period, the Yangtze River Economic Belt was the largest outflow region of water, carbon, and ecological footprints nationwide. From the perspective of net flows, all three types of footprint flows in the Yangtze River Economic Belt exhibited continuously increasing net outflows, while all three types of footprint flows in the Yellow River Basin exhibited continuously increasing net inflows. The flows of all three types of footprints between the two major national strategic regions were directed from the Yangtze River Economic Belt to the Yellow River Basin.

Cities in arid and semi-arid regions of Northwest China face compound water security challenges, including waterlogging, Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) pollution, and water scarcity. Taking the southern area of Wuzhong City as a case study, flood and water quality models were constructed. With the objectives of maximizing the combined sewer overflow pollution reduction index before the wastewater treatment plant and minimizing construction costs, the NSGA-II algorithm was used to optimize the spatial layout of Low-Impact Development (LID) facilities. The effects of grey-green collaborative control measures, combining LID source control and stormwater-sewage diversion retrofitting of pipeline networks, on urban waterlogging risk and combined sewer overflow pollution reduction were analyzed. The results showed that: As the rainfall return period increases, the slope of the Pareto front between the pollution reduction index and cost gradually flattens, and the solutions near the inflection point can achieve a balance between pollution reduction and cost. Grey-green collaborative control measures can reduce the overall waterlogging extent and depth, but they cannot completely eliminate localized waterlogging; storage tanks and pumping stations remain necessary supplements for mitigating local waterlogging risks. Infiltration is the main pathway for rainwater disposal in the study area. LID facilities play an important role in storage and regulation during low-return-period rainfall events. The grey-green collaborative control measures combining LID source control and rainwater-sewage diversion retrofitting are the most effective solution for reducing CSO pollution before wastewater treatment plants.

In recent years, under the combined influence of global climate change and human activities, extreme floods and droughts have occurred frequently in the Yellow River Basin, and the water-sediment regime has shown new changes, imposing higher requirements on flood governance and management. This paper systematically reviews the historical practices and major experiences of flood governance and management in the Yellow River Basin, and analyzes the situations and challenges in the new era. The results show that: The flood control engineering system, the supporting system for flood governance and management, and the joint operation mechanism for water-sediment regulation in the Yellow River Basin have been continuously improved, promoting a transformation of flood governance from passively coping with floods to actively regulating water and sediment, and ushering in a new stage of human-water harmony. However, in the face of the new situation of flood governance and management, the management concepts and control requirements for flood governance, as well as the measured water-sediment conditions and the boundaries of river channels and reservoirs, are all undergoing continuous changes. Under the guidance of the new concepts of flood control, flood utilization, and flood shaping, future efforts must urgently adopt a watershed system perspective, adhere to the integrated management of water and sediment, and construct a flood control and management engineering system covering the full chain of “gully-reservoir-channel”. It is also essential to improve the supporting systems for flood control and management, leverage the construction of a data-model dual-driven watershed model as a key measure, and continuously advance theoretical and technological research on the equilibrium theory of check dam systems, optimization of water project operation, enhancement of flood resilience in the lower channel, and adaptive regulation of hyper-concentrated floods.

Technological innovation is an important driver of industrial integration and regional high-quality development. Based on panel data for 76 prefecture-level cities in the Yellow River Basin from 2010 to 2022, this study used a two-way fixed effects model to examine the impact of technological innovation on industrial co-agglomeration. The results show that: Both the level of technological innovation and the level of industrial co-agglomeration in the Yellow River Basin exhibit significant spatial disequilibrium characteristics. The overall spatial distribution pattern of technological innovation is low in the upper reaches and high in the middle and lower reaches. Industrial co-agglomeration has evolved from point-like agglomeration to multi-center linkage. Technological innovation has a significant U-shaped nonlinear impact on industrial co-agglomeration. There are notable regional differences in the impact of technological innovation on industrial co-agglomeration, with more significant nonlinear impacts in the middle and lower reaches, resource-based cities, and small and medium-sized cities. Industrial structure upgrading and digital infrastructure are important transmission pathways through which technological innovation influences industrial co-agglomeration.

To address the challenges posed by the long revisit cycle of Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery and the resulting temporal observation gaps in dynamic monitoring of tidal wetlands in the Yellow River Estuary, as well as the limitations of conventional deep learning prediction methods in handling irregular temporal sampling and complex scattering characteristics, this study constructs a dataset using 241 Sentinel-1 IW GRDH dual-polarization time-series images acquired from 2016 to 2025. A Spatio-Temporal and Frequency-Guided Flow Matching Network (STFG-FMNet) is proposed. The model formulates SAR image prediction as a continuous temporal evolution process. It characterizes temporal and spatial information via spatiotemporal encoding, enhances the interaction of change information between historical observations using a cross-attention mechanism, and incorporates a frequency-guided branch into the UNet backbone to strengthen multi-scale scattering feature representation. Furthermore, a flow matching training paradigm is adopted to learn the image evolution process, alleviating the blurring effect commonly observed in direct regression-based prediction methods. Experimental results comparing STFG-FMNet with the persistence baseline and the UNet-based direct regression method demonstrate that: The proposed model achieves a Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) of 0.82 for the VV polarization, representing improvements of 0.17 and 0.14 over the persistence baseline and the UNet-based regression model, respectively. For the VH polarization, the SSIM reaches 0.97. The study indicates that STFG-FMNet effectively improves the accuracy of SAR time-series image prediction in the Yellow River Estuary.

Using the basin upstream of Heishiguan Station in the Yiluo River Basin as the study area,this study investigated runoff evolution, precipitation response, and the applicability of monthly runoff simulation based on multi-source meteorological, runoff, and land-surface data from 2001 to 2024, combined with trend tests, anomaly analysis, lag correlation, and the WACM model. The aim is to clarify recent wet-dry runoff evolution, lagged precipitation response, and the ability of WACM to support monthly runoff assessment. Results indicate that: Both basin-average annual precipitation and annual mean discharge showed non-significant upward trends; The multi-year mean annual discharge at Heishiguan Station was 63.86 m³/s, and no significant abrupt change was detected. The runoff exhibited distinct staged characteristics: Persistent dry conditions occurred during 2013-2020, while the extremely wet year of 2021 rapidly replenished the cumulative deficit and increased the sensitivity of trend identification to extreme years. Annual precipitation was significantly positively correlated with annual runoff depth. Monthly runoff responded mainly within the same month or with a one-month lag, with the strongest same-month response in the flood season and the strongest one-month-lag response in the non-flood season. The NSE, R², and PBIAS values of the WACM model were 0.91, 0.92, and -2.91% in the calibration period and 0.73, 0.75, and 5.25% in the validation period, respectively, showing that the model can effectively reproduce monthly wet-dry transitions and flood-season runoff concentration.

Accurately revealing the spatiotemporal patterns and driving mechanisms of the evolution of water conservation in the source region of the Yellow River (SRYR) and scientifically formulating strategies to enhance water conservation capacity are crucial for the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. This article was based on multi-source data, such as digital elevation models, land use, soil, meteorology, and hydrology, in the SRYR, and constructed a physical mechanism model of water conservation coupled with frozen soil, snow cover, and soil hydrological processes. Combined with the hierarchical clustering method, the fine division of Water Conservation Units (WCU) was completed. The single-factor and two-factor interactive driving effects of 13 elements were quantitatively analyzed using geographic detectors, and differentiated conservation capacity improvement measures of each WCU were proposed. The results showed that: The SRYR was divided into 10 WCUs, and the spatial differentiation within each WCU was significant. Among them, WCU6 had a stronger conservation capacity (338.0 mm), while WCU10 had a weaker capacity (25.5 mm). Precipitation is the dominant driver of variations in water conservation, exhibiting the strongest interactive effects with actual evapotranspiration, soil temperature, and ecosystem type. Based on the differences in driving mechanisms, the 10 WCUs are divided into two spatial control types: natural restoration and artificial restoration. The artificial restoration area is divided into high-, medium-, and low-potential restoration areas. Targeted differentiated ecological restoration measures and long-term management mechanisms are proposed.

The middle-lower reaches of the Yellow River form a core area for ecological conservation and high-quality development in the basin. Understanding the spatiotemporal evolution and driving mechanisms of the resilience of its water-socioeconomic-ecological system is essential for identifying vulnerable nodes and improving the basin’s risk resilience and sustainable development. Using a resistance-recovery-adaptation framework, we measure system resilience for prefecture-level cities from 2008 to 2022 via entropy-weighted TOPSIS. We then apply the TS-MK trend test, spatial autocorrelation analysis, OPGD, and GTWR to reveal evolutionary patterns and driving heterogeneity. The results indicate that: System resilience improved significantly overall during the study period, evolving through three phases: gradual increase, fluctuation, and rapid growth. In 2019, driven by national policies, the driving effect was pronounced. Notably, the adaptability subsystem increased in 259.05%, making it the core contributor to resilience growth. Spatially, inter-provincial disparities were significant, with Shandong, Shaanxi, and Henan constituting high-value clusters; At the city level, Xi’an, Zhengzhou, and Jinan led the way, with an upward trend observed overall except for a few individual cities. Water supply volume was the single most explanatory factor, followed by expenditure on science and technology and education, while indicators related to the ecological environment had a limited impact; The driving mechanism shifted from being dominated by resource supply in the early stages to efficiency improvements and multi-factor synergy. The GTWR model further reveals that the marginal returns on water supply are diminishing; The positive impact of expenditure on science and technology is concentrated in core cities; Expenditure on education yields higher marginal returns in less developed regions;  Regional disparities in environmental protection expenditure are tending to converge. The resilience of the basin’s water-socioeconomic-ecological system has shifted from the traditional path of water resource constraints to a new model driven by a combination of science, technology, education, and collaborative governance.

Affected by climate warming and humidification, ecological restoration projects and new anthropogenic disturbances, the wind, water, freeze-thaw and gravity erosion forces in the source region of the Yellow River are highly intertwined in time and space, resulting in increasingly complex soil composite erosion patterns. The pattern of water and sediment production and transportation in the basin is constantly reconstructed, and the stability of regional soil and water conservation and water conservation functions is facing potential threats. This paper systematically sorts out the types, development rules and overall evolution trend of composite erosion in the source region of the Yellow River, and comprehensively summarizes the existing research progress from three dimensions: multi-force soil erosion coupling mechanism, watershed water and sediment flux response simulation, and soil erosion prevention and control. In view of the shortcomings of current research, focusing on key scientific issues, it is proposed that in the future, on the basis of strengthening long-term field in-situ monitoring and indoor control experiments, the research on the nonlinear interaction mechanism of freeze-thaw-wind-water-gravity multi-process should be further deepened, and the key parameterization scheme of composite erosion process should be improved. The distributed water and sediment model coupled with the composite erosion process in the alpine region is improved to improve the simulation accuracy of the model at multiple spatial and temporal scales. On this basis, a differentiated spatial control strategy for the coordinated improvement of soil and water conservation and water conservation functions is proposed to provide technical support for the precise prevention and control of soil and water loss and the protection and restoration of ecosystems in the source region of the Yellow River.

In view of the shortage of water resources endowment and the prominent contradiction between supply and demand in Guanzhong area of Shaanxi Province, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory is introduced to divide domestic, industrial, agricultural and ecological water use into three levels: rigid, elastic and luxury. Taking the maximization of social comprehensive benefits as the core, a multi-objective optimization configuration model based on the theory of hierarchy of needs is constructed. The combination weighting-TOPSIS method is used to optimize the configuration schemes under 50%, 75% and 90% inflow frequencies. The results show that: The water use in Guanzhong area is characterized by “agriculture-led, balanced life and industry, and ecologically controllable”. Agricultural water use accounts for more than 45% of total water demand. The water shortage rate in the base year increased from 18.508% to 31.726% with the increase of inflow frequency. In the planning year, under the support of external water transfer, the water-saving scheme achieves 100% satisfaction of all kinds of water use at 50% of the incoming water frequency, and the ecological satisfaction reaches 90.26% at 90% of the frequency, and the life and industry maintain a high level of protection. The model effectively avoids the low-level fairness trap by balancing satisfaction and equilibrium.

In response to the systemic challenges posed by the Yellow River Basin’s inherent “water-sediment co-occurrence” characteristics, namely the high risk and severe consequences of extreme flood-sediment events, this paper draws upon flood management practices in the basin to uncover their underlying management logic and distill the “Three Attributes Interconversion” dynamic flood management paradigm. The study provides an in-depth examination of the intrinsic logic and management philosophy governing the dynamic interconversion among the three core attributes of floods: harmfulness, resourcefulness, and functionality. It further synthesizes a tripartite technical framework consisting of “the intelligent hub, regulation and control support, and institutional guarantee”. Building on this foundation, the paper articulates a dynamic, synergistic practical pathway characterized by “precise prevention and control of harmfulness, scientific utilization of resourcefulness, and proactive shaping of functionality.” The effectiveness of this paradigm is validated through historical experience. Overall, the paradigm marks a fundamental shift in flood management from singular control to multi-attribute dynamic transformation, and from engineering-dominated approaches to systematic governance. It offers a scientifically grounded solution for ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin, while also providing a robust theoretical framework and practical pathway for implementing the “Three Floods” systematic solution.

To promote the green transformation and high-quality coordinated development of agriculture in the Yellow River Basin, this study adopts the comprehensive index method and the super-efficiency SBM model to measure agricultural new quality productive forces and the ecological efficiency of cultivated land use in the Yellow River Basin. The coupling coordination degree model, Gini coefficient method, and obstacle degree model are employed to investigate the coupling coordination level, regional disparity characteristics, and obstacle factors between the agricultural new quality productive forces system and the ecological efficiency of cultivated land use system. The results show that: a) Agricultural new quality productive forces in the Yellow River Basin exhibit a steady growth trend, with Sichuan showing the largest increase and Gansu the smallest. b) The ecological efficiency of cultivated land use in the Yellow River Basin shows a fluctuating upward trend; Gansu and Qinghai are at a low level, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, and Ningxia are at an intermediate level, while Sichuan, Henan, and Inner Mongolia have reached an advanced level. c) The coupling coordination degree between the two systems in the Yellow River Basin shows a continuously rising trend, evolving from weak coordination to high-quality coordination. d) The overall Gini coefficient of coupling coordination between the two systems in the Yellow River Basin shows an inverted V-shaped fluctuating downward trend. Intra-regional disparities follow a spatial pattern of upper reaches > middle reaches > lower reaches, while inter-regional disparities show a spatial pattern of upper-middle reaches > upper-lower reaches > middle-lower reaches. The sources of regional disparity are: intra-regional contribution rate > inter-regional contribution rate > hypervariable density contribution rate. e) The obstacle factors of the two systems vary across provinces (regions) in the Yellow River Basin. The main obstacle factors for agricultural new quality productive forces include rural employment, the proportion of output value from professional and auxiliary activities in agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery, and the proportion of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure. The main obstacle factors for the ecological efficiency of cultivated land use include carbon emissions from cultivated land use, the number of agricultural practitioners, and the total power of agricultural machinery. Based on the research findings, countermeasures and suggestions are proposed to promote the enhancement of agricultural new quality productive forces and the synergistic optimization of ecological efficiency of cultivated land use in the Yellow River Basin.