The Shiyang River (石羊河), previously called the Gu River (谷水), flows through the eastern
Hexi Corridor
The Hexi Corridor (, Xiao'erjing: حْسِ ظِوْلاْ, IPA: ), also known as the Gansu Corridor, is an important historical region located in the modern western Gansu province of China. It refers to a narrow stretch of traversable and rela ...
in the
China.
The catchment area of the Shiyang River covers about 41,600 km
2, most of which lies within today's
Wuwei prefecture-level city
A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure.
During the Republican era, many of China ...
of the
Gansu Province. The river originates from the
Qilian Mountains
The Qilian Mountains (, also romanized as Tsilien; Mongghul: Chileb), together with the Altyn-Tagh (Altun Shan) also known as Nan Shan (, literally "Southern Mountains"), as it is to the south of Hexi Corridor, is a northern outlier of the Kunlu ...
, and flows north-east, toward the
Gobi
The Gobi Desert ( Chinese: 戈壁 (沙漠), Mongolian: Говь (ᠭᠣᠪᠢ)) () is a large desert or brushland region in East Asia, and is the sixth largest desert in the world.
Geography
The Gobi measures from southwest to northeast ...
Desert. The Wuqiaoling Range (乌鞘岭), in
Tenzhu Tibetan Autonomous County
Bairi (Tianzhu) Tibetan Autonomous County (; ) is in the prefecture-level city of Wuwei in the central part of Gansu province, China, bordering Qinghai province to the south and west. It has an area of and approximately 230,000 inhabitants (2003 ...
, forms the dividing ridge between the
endorheic
An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...
Shiyang River catchment in the north and the exorheic
Yellow River
The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Ha ...
catchment in the south.
In the
Tang Dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom ...
, the Baiting Lake (白亭海) was one of the terminal lakes of Shiyang River. However, the Baiting Lake has dried up and the modern terminal lake of Shiyang River is the Qingtu Lake (青土湖).
Agricultural oases are distributed in the Shiyang River catchment, with
Wuwei being the main city of this region. Reservoirs have been constructed for the purposes of irrigation and flood prevention. There were 24 reservoirs in the Shiyang River Basin as of 2000. The population in the Shiyang River catchment was about 2 268 900 as of 2003. Currently people in this region are facing problems of overdevelopment and
desertification.
In the lower reaches of Shiyang River is the
Minqin Oasis, which is surrounded by the
Tengger Desert
The Tengger Desert or Tengri Desert ( mn, Тэнгэр цөл, ) is an arid natural region that covers about 36,700 km2 and is mostly in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in China.
The desert is expanding in size.Haner, Josh, et al. (24 O ...
(腾格里沙漠) in the east and the
Badain Jaran Desert
The Badain Jaran Desert () is a desert in China which spans the provinces of Gansu, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. It covers an area of . By size it is the third largest desert in China.
This desert is home to some of the tallest stationary dunes o ...
(巴丹吉林沙漠) in the west. Currently efforts are being made to prevent the desertification and disappearance of the Minqin Oasis.
[http://www.igsnrr.ac.cn/xwzx/jxlwtj/200802/W020090715581100988843.pdf ]
References
{{Coord missing, Gansu
Rivers of Gansu