The Yellow Rivers, the second largest river in China, has during historical time been known as the "Yellow sorrow", because of the frequent flooding disasters in the lower reaches of the river, However, the situation is now reversed; during the dry season the water flow ceases intermittently in parts of the lower reaches, This happened for the first time in 1960; after 1972 frequently and from 1992 every year The longest period without any water flow occurred in 1997, lasting for 226 days and extending 700km upstream from the river mouth The main reason for the seasonal interruption of flow is the artificial diversion of water for urban and farmland water supply which infringes on, and sometimes exhausts the natural flow volume, Acontributing reason for the river drought is the climatic warming trend coupled with up to 10% reduction in precipitation Even though measures were initiated in 1997 for control of water usage in the upper and middle streams, there were still 137 days in 1998 and 43 days in 1999 without supply of water to parts of lower Yellow River channel, Not until the year 2000 was it possible to eliminater the drought events by artificial control