China's Mother River Under Threat

The Yellow River snakes through northern China for more than 3,000 miles and is known as the country's mother river. Thousands of years ago, Chinese civilization grew up along its banks.

But it's also known by another name: China's sorrow. Over the centuries, its floodwaters have claimed millions of Chinese lives.

Now, though, the problem has reversed. For three years in the 1990s, the Yellow River — which 140 million people depend on for water — actually dried up before it reached the sea, due to overuse. And pollution on the river has reached horrific levels.

The river begins its journey across the country high on the Tibetan plateau in western China's Qinghai Province. Amid silence and pristine beauty, the river flows out of two crystal clear lakes 15,000 feet above sea level, surrounded by snowcapped mountains and grasslands. The blue sky and mountain snow are dazzling, as is the wildlife here: deer, wolves, foxes and eagles.

The water — bright and clear — defies the name of the river it is becoming as it begins to flow out of the lakes.

But a closer look at the flat grasslands between the lakes and the mountains reveals dark hollows that scar the landscape. There used to be some 4,000 small, shallow lakes in the area. Now, three-quarters of them are dry.In fact, the whole ecosystem at the river's source is in trouble, and scientists are worried. They say there hasn't been enough rain, and so the soil is increasingly dry and barren.

Rising temperatures associated with climate change are melting the glaciers and also thawing the permafrost, so water is being absorbed into the soil and not reaching the river, scientists say.

And Tibetan nomads who have roamed these parts for centuries have overgrazed the grasslands with their animals, according to the scientists, leading to severe soil erosion that also diminishes the flow of water to the river.

Focusing on this last issue, the government has started to force the Tibetans to give up herding and their nomadic way of life — and to settle in one place.

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