Water allocations for the Yellow River Basin’s nine provinces.

A 1987 plan to allocate and enforce specific allotments of water to each of the 9 provinces in the Yellow River Basin is based on an estimated river volume of 58 billion cubic meters (15 trillion gallons).

This estimate, however, has proven faulty: last year, the river volume fell to 53 billion cubic meters (14 trillion gallons), and, in 2003, it dropped below 45 billion cubic meters (12 trillion gallons).

Map © Ball State University for Circle of Blue. Click through the interactive map to see how a 1987 plan allocated water resources to each of the 9 provinces within China’s Yellow River Basin. Source: Wang Yahua, China Environment Series 6.

Map and graphic by Stephanie Stamm, Justin Manning, Stephanie Meredith, and Kate Roesch, undergraduate students at Ball State University.

With contribution by Nadya Ivanova, a Chicago-based reporter for Circle of Blue, and Jennifer Turner, director of the China Environment Forum within the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Reach Ivanova at circleofblue.org/contact.