The Yellow River originates on the Tibetan Plateau and transports vast amounts of terrestrial sediment to the ocean. However, previous studies have not reached a consensus as to when and how the Yellow River first began to flow into the sea. Here we present Sr-Nd-Pb isotope data and a high-resolution clay mineral record of a 200-m-long sediment core recovered from the modern Yellow River delta. The changes in Sr-Nd-Pb isotopic compositions and clay minerals at 0.71 Ma suggest that a larger proportion of sediment was derived from the Yellow River after this time. We propose that the Yellow River has influenced the Bohai Sea since 1.9 Ma (or even earlier), which provides important evidence for an older Yellow River than 1.2 Ma. A significant increase in discharge of Yellow River sediments since 0.71 Ma is due to continuing subsidence of the eastern China coast, the large amplitude of Quaternary sea-level changes, and increased supply of eroded loess during the last 1.0 Ma. After this time, the contribution of local rivers surrounding the Bohai Sea became negligible due to dilution by the huge amounts of Yellow River sediments. These results provide improved constraints on the evolution of the Yellow River and subsequent land-sea fluxes.

Soil conservation on the Loess Plateau is important not only for local residents but also for reducing sediment downstream in the Yellow River. In this paper, we report a decrease in soil erosion from 2000 to 2010 as a result of the ‘Grain for Green' (GFG) Project. By using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation and data on land cover, climate and sediment yield, we found that soil erosion decreased from 6579.55tkm–2yr–1 in 2000 to 1986.66tkm–2yr–1 in 2010. During this period, there was a major land cover change from farmland to grassland in response to the GFG. The area of low vegetation coverage with severe erosion decreased dramatically, whereas the area of high vegetation coverage with slight erosion increased. Our study demonstrates that the reduction in soil erosion on the Loess Plateau contributed to the decrease in the sediment concentration in the Yellow River.

Interactions of fluvial and eolian processes are prominent in dryland environments and can significantly change Earth surface morphology. Here, we report on sediment records of eolian and fluvial interactions since the last glacial period, in the semiarid area of northwest China, at the limit of the Southeast Asian monsoon. Sediment sequences of last glacial and Holocene terraces of the Yellow River are composed of channel gravels, overlain by flood sands, eolian dunes, and flood loams. These sequences, dated by optically stimulated luminescence, record interlinks between fluvial and eolian processes and their response to climate change. Sedimentologic structures and grain-size analysis show flood loams, consisting of windblown sediment, deposited from floodwater suspended sediment. The gravel and sand were deposited during cold periods. During transitions from cold to warm phases, the river incised, and dunes were formed by deflation of channel and floodplain deposits (>70 and 21–16 ka). Dunes also formed at ~0.8 ka, probably after human intervention. After dune formation, flood loam covered dunes without erosion during peak discharges at the beginning of the subsequent warm period. The fluctuations of the Southeast Asian monsoon as a moisture-transporting agent have perhaps been the driving force for interactions between fluvial and eolian processes in this semiarid environment.

We evaluate the relative importance of climate change, fluvial dynamics, and anthropogenic environmental modification in forming the Holocene sedimentary record of the Luoyang Basin, a tributary drainage basin of the Yellow River, located in western Henan Province, China. Our 2011 fieldwork south of the Erlitou site in the Luoyang Basin indicates that an unconformity dating to ca. AD 1100 is roughly coincident with a major southward shift in the lower course of the Yellow River. In AD 1128, the governor of Kaifeng breached the dikes of the Yellow River to impede an advancing army, causing the Yellow River to flow south out to the Yellow Sea. We argue that the dike breach not only changed the fluvial dynamics of the Yellow River but also switched the rivers in the Luoyang Basin from an aggrading to an incising system. The resumption of sedimentation in the Luoyang Basin is roughly coincident with the next major shift of the Yellow River’s main course northward to the Bohai Sea in AD 1855. The unconformity found in the Luoyang Basin may be a legacy of historically contingent human agency rather than climatic shifts or gradual environmental modification.

The way in which the NE Tibetan Plateau uplifted and its impact on climatic change are crucial to understanding the evolution of the Tibetan Plateau and the development of the present geomorphology and climate of Central and East Asia. This paper is not a comprehensive review of current thinking but instead synthesises our past decades of work together with a number of new findings. The dating of Late Cenozoic basin sediments and the tectonic geomorphology of the NE Tibetan Plateau demonstrates that the rapid persistent rise of this plateau began ~8 ± 1 Ma followed by stepwise accelerated rise at ~3.6 Ma, 2.6 Ma, 1.8–1.7 Ma, 1.2–0.6 Ma and 0.15 Ma. The Yellow River basin developed at ~1.7 Ma and evolved to its present pattern through stepwise backward-expansion toward its source area in response to the stepwise uplift of the plateau. High-resolution multi-climatic proxy records from the basins and terrace sediments indicate a persistent stepwise accelerated enhancement of the East Asian winter monsoon and drying of the Asian interior coupled with the episodic tectonic uplift since ~8 Ma and later also with the global cooling since ~3.2 Ma, suggesting a major role for tectonic forcing of the cooling.

Offset fluvial valleys, including rivers beheaded and deflected by strike-slip faults, have long been used to estimate horizontal displacements on the faults. Larger rivers crossing such faults, however, sometimes show either no offset or only a small amount of offset compared to smaller rivers crossing the same faults. The larger rivers with higher erosional rates may widen their valleys asymmetrically downstream of strike-slip faults, rather than being beheaded or deflected. Examples are described from the Yellow River near the NE margin of the Tibetan Plateau. River beheading and asymmetrical widening are two end-members of a fluvial valley's response to strike-slip faulting, whereas deflection is a combination of both. Recognition of the formation of such asymmetrical valleys related to strike-slip faulting will help to understand fault activity better over longer time spans and enable a re-evaluation of many fault histories worldwide.

The authors summarise the latest evidence for the introduction of rice cultivation into northern China, and show that it most probably began there in the early seventh millennium BC as a result of influence or migration from the Yangtze Valley.

The authors provide an overview of animal exploitation in the Chinese Neolithic, emphasising regional differences in meat procurement strategies. While the Yellow river peoples turned from hunting wild animals to the rearing of pigs, dogs, sheep and cattle during the Neolithic, the peoples of the Yangzi valley continued to rely on an abundant supply of wild creatures into their Bronze Age. Their staples were deer, fish and birds and there was a special relationship with fish that extended even to the grave.