The Yellow River is one of the rivers with the largest amount of sediment in the world. The amount of incoming sediment has an important impact on water resources management, sediment regulation schemes, and the construction of water conservancy projects. The Loess Plateau is the main source of sediment in the Yellow River Basin. Floods caused by extreme precipitation are the primary driving forces of soil erosion in the Loess Plateau. In this study, we constructed the extreme precipitation scenarios based on historical extreme precipitation records in the main sediment-yielding area in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. The amount of sediment yield under current land surface conditions was estimated according to the relationship between extreme precipitation and sediment yield observations in the historical period. The results showed that the extreme rainfall scenario of the study area reaches to 159.9 mm, corresponding to a recurrence period of 460 years. The corresponding annual sediment yield under the current land surface condition was range from 0.821 billion tons to 1.899 billion tons, and the median annual sediment yield is 1.355 billion tons, of which more than 91.9% of sediment yields come from the Hekouzhen to Longmen sectionand the Jinghe River basin. Therefore, even though the vegetation of the Loess Plateau has been greatly improved, and a large number of terraces and check dams have been built, the flood control and key project operation of the Yellow River still need to be prepared to deal with the large amount of sediment transport.

The sustainable utilization of water resources plays a crucial strategic role in regional economic development. The water resources carrying capacity (WRCC) is a multifaceted system influenced by diverse factors, where the interplay among water resources, societal factors, economic conditions, and ecological elements collectively determines the overall WRCC. Combining relevant research results, this paper utilized an improved TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution) and GRA (grey relational analysis)-based WRCC evaluation model, introduced the panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model to analyze the effects of interactions among subsystems, and applied the geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model for the driving analysis of WRCC. Using Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region as a case study, this paper discusses the internal dynamic relationships and driving mechanisms of the WRCC system. It also provides a new perspective for discussing WRCC in water-scarce areas and provides novel approaches for optimizing water resource management and enhancing ecological protection. The results indicate that the water resources subsystem is central to the WRCC in Ningxia, with significant interconnections among the four subsystems. However, significant spatial and temporal heterogeneity is evident across different regions. The water resources system contributes significantly, with ecological development having a positive impact on water resources. However, social and economic development has a restrictive impact on water resources.

The sediment yield of the Yellow River Basin has obviously decreased since the 1980s, and the impacts of precipitation on sediment yield changes have become increasingly important with the global climate change. The spatial and temporal variations in annual precipitation and different classes of precipitation in the Hekouzhen-Longmen region (HLR) in the middle reaches of the Yellow River Basin were investigated using data collected from 301 rainfall stations from 1966 to 2016. The impacts of precipitation variation on sediment yield were evaluated, and the hydrological modeling method was used to quantitatively assess the attribution of precipitation and other factors to sediment yield changes in the HLR. The results show that the annual precipitation and P10 increased from the northwest to the southeast of the HLR, suggesting it was drier in the northwest region of the HLR. P25 and P50 were mainly concentrated in the northwestern and southwestern parts of the HLR, reflecting that heavy rain was more likely to occur in these regions of the HLR. All of the annual precipitation and different classes of precipitation had no significant changing trends from 1966 to 2016, and the relationship between rainfall and sediment yield obviously changed in 2006. Compared with the average annual mean values from 1966 to 2016, both the annual precipitation and the different classes of precipitation were higher in the HLR during 2007–2016. The sediment yield decrease during 1990–1999 was mainly influenced by precipitation, while other factors were the main driving factor for the sediment yield decrease in the periods of 1980–1989, 2000–2009, and 2010–2016, and other factors have become the dominant driving factors of the sediment yield change in the HLR since 2000.