Social-Hydrology

The temporal increase of the complexity index indicated that the virtual water outflows (VWFs) from the YRB were becoming increasingly critical to China; i.e. the ability of YRB to produce crops boosted the difficulty of its water being replaced by water exporting from other basins.

Collective memory plays a controlling role in adaptation to potential flood risks, by learning from past disasters. Based on survey data, we suggest that using the Universal Decay Model (UDM) proposed by previous researchers provides better fitting results for the decay of flooding memory.

Our study demonstrated that network analysis could be one promising direction to untangle the complex SES and understand the relationship between SES structure and outcomes. We suggest comanaging the cross-boundary river and lands to further match the SES for basin sustainability.

China’s Yellow River Basin (YRB) is one of the most anthropogenically altered large river basins worldwide. Therefore, coupling human and natural system studies is crucial to support its sustainability. This project aims at using a social-ecological system framework to deepen our understanding of this complex system.