The Commentaiy Of Li Yi-Zhi’s Governance Theory And Practice Of The Yellow River

Li Yi-Zhi (1882-1938) is a famous water conservancy expert and educator in China’smodern history, and he is well known as “the Father of modern China water conservancy”, hemade contributions to our country’s rivers management career. Especially in the area of theYellow River governance，He put forward the most detailed management plan and partly putinto practice in nearly20years which began from the1920s to his death. During thelong-term practice of the Yellow River management, he formed his unique theory ofComprehensive management of the Yellow River.The formation of Li Yi-Zhi’s comprehensive management theory of controlling TheYellow River has a close relationship with his survival environment, It formed on the basic ofhis combination of both his inheritance and development of the river management experienceof our country’s ancient ancestors and absorbing and drawing lessons from the Western’sadvanced water management technology. Its main contents included the principle ofsurveying and testing first when he managed the Yellow River, and the principle of themanagement plan deciding by the result of the model test program, and the principle of theclaiming of integrating the management organizations in order to realize unificationmanagement of the river. In the specific process of river regulation, he stressed that we musttake the upper and middle and lower reaches of the river into account, and fix the bed of theriver to consolidate the dikes, and increase the coverage rate of vegetation in order toeradicate the silt, and build up reservoirs in order to prevent flood, and not block the breachup negatively and dredge the flood based on the situation and other comprehensivemanagement measures, which embarked on a new road of comprehensive control of theYellow River, these measures also become the big turning point of the Yellow Rivermanagement history from the traditional way to modern. In addition, Li Yi-Zhi has also takenthe first step in comprehensive development and utilization of the Yellow River. Heemphasized on the function of hydropower development in promoting the role of industryconstruction, so he advocated the construction of reservoirs on the Yellow River in order touse the reservoirs for water power generation; He also initiated to build channels in order topromote irrigation, and completed the construction of the Jing Hui drainage and Wei Hui drainage and Luo Hui drainage; and he suggest to adjust the Yellow River shipping traffic inorder to facilitate the traffic of the Yellow River, and these opened a new era of developmentand utilization of the Yellow River.All in all, Li Yi-Zhi’s comprehensive management theory of controlling the Yellow Riverhas the characteristic a scientific, practical, innovative, comprehensive and heritable theory.Although due to the constraints of the political, economic, and social reasons, his theories didnot achieve greater achievements in practice. But the guidance meaning to our country’s waterconservancy and environment management career can not be ignored. We should insist on anddevelop the unremitting spirit of Li Yi-Zhi’s water conservancy, and draw on the experienceof China and foreign in water management and advanced technology in order to promote thecontinuous development of our country’s water conservancy and the economy.