Water Allocation Institutions in the Yellow River Basin: Framework, Evaluation and Perspective

In the water management of a river basin, institutions of water allocation in macro level are highly significant for the rational deployment of water. This paper propounds a primary framework for water allocation system of a basin, which has been used to evaluate the Yellow River's institutional changes of water allocation. The evaluation not only displays the dynamic improvement of allocation institutions in the past fifteen years but also exposes the faults of current allocation system in the Yellow River Basin. In the last section total twenty five pieces of suggestions or implications are proposed based on the institutional framework of basin's water allocation.