This Law is developed for the purposes of strengthening the protection of the ecology and environment of the Yellow River basin, guaranteeing the safety of the Yellow River, promoting the conservation and intensive utilization of water resources, driving high-quality development, protecting, inheriting, and promoting the Yellow River culture, and realizing the harmonious coexistence between man and nature and the sustainable development of the Chinese nation.
The Law consists of 122 Articles divided into 11 Chapters: I. General Provisions; II. Planning and Control; III. Ecological Protection and Restoration; IV Conservation and Intensive Utilization of Water Resources; V. Water and Sediment Control and Flood Control Safety; VI Pollution Prevention and Control; VII Promoting High-Quality Development; VIII. Protection, Inheritance, and Promotion of the Yellow River Culture; IX. Guarantee and Supervision; X. Legal Liability; XI. Supplemental Provisions.
The Yellow River Protection Law makes systematic and holistic institutional arrangements for the protection and management of the Yellow River, seeking to reduce groundwater abstraction in the yellow river basin. The Law takes water as the core, rivers as the link, and basins as the basis, and promotes the comprehensive control, systematic control, and source control of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grass and sand, fully reflecting the relevance of upstream and downstream, trunk and tributaries, and left and right banks. Water conservation areas, as the focus of protection, should strengthen the protection of snow mountain glaciers, plateau permafrost, alpine meadows, grasslands, wetlands, etc.; for the water and soil erosion control in the Yellow River Basin, key areas such as Liupan Mountain, the northern foot of the Qinling Mountains, and Helan Mountain should take scientific biological and engineering measures based on the actual situation. In particular, it is required to follow the principles of unified planning, unified management, and unified scheduling to formulate comprehensive plans for the Yellow River Basin, water resources plans, and flood control plans in accordance with the law, and to make arrangements for conservation, protection, development, and utilization of water resources and prevention and control of water disasters.
The Law states that the country shall implement a rigid water resource constraint system in the Yellow River Basin from the legal level. It clearly requires optimizing the development and protection pattern of land space, promoting the scientific and rational distribution of population and cities, and building a modern industrial system that is compatible with the carrying capacity of water resources.
The Chapter V of the Law focuses on water and sediment control and flood control safety, and stipulates the organization and construction of water and sediment control and flood control and disaster reduction engineering systems in the Yellow River Basin, and the improvement of water and sediment control systems based on major water projects such as backbone reservoirs.