黄河是中华民族的母亲河 ,黄河流域是世界上著名的四大文明古国的发祥地之一。远古时代黄河流域气候湿润、水源丰富、土地肥沃。轩猿黄帝和他的沿黄部落就在这里开始创造中华文明。而今黄河下游常年发生断流 ,中游水土流失严重 ,河源区生态环境恶化 ,已引起我国政府和民众的关注。目前 ,防治黄河源区生态环境进一步恶化的研究工作必须加大力度 ,在财力、人力方面应给予更大的支持 ,及早编制该区治理生态环境的规划 ,加强环境保护措施

The Yellow River is the mother river of the Chinese nation, and the watersheds of the Yellow River is also one of four famous countries with an ancien tcivilization in the World. In remoteantiquity, the climate wasw arm and moist, abundant water resources and good soil favorite to the Xuanyuan Emporia and his tribe lived along both sides of the Yellow River, and created a Chinese civilization. But at present a broken flow of the Yellow River is frequent in the lower reach and heavy soil erosion in the middle reach, ecological environmen t steadily deterio rated in the headwater. At tention has be paid to these situations by the chinese Government and their people. Over the confluence of the Maqu River and Heihe River (the range before the Huashixia) is called the sourceregion of the Yellow River with anarea of 22000km2, the length of the riverbed 323km from the Maqu River to the headwater with slope of 1.2%o. The whole source region is a Cenozo ic tecton ic dep ression situated between Buqingshan and Bar YanharaMoun tains, and can be divided in to five landformunits based on geomorphologic features, and show as follow from north to south: 1. Zagarishan2Buqingshan high middle mountainous region 2. Joguzhongle Basin2Xin suhai Lake-Gyaring L ake2N go ring L ake2M aqu R iver b road2valley basin region 3. Joguzhongle MountainMian shaling Ridge lower mountain-hill region 4. Kariqu R iver2Heihe R iver b roadvalley basin region 5. Baryan Har h igh2moun tainou s region The watershed region of the Yellow Rver is a great Tertiary lacustrine basin with red-clastics and redmudstone stratigraphies distributed ex tendedly in both south and north sides of present lake basin. During the early Pleistocene, the northern side of the paleo lake extended to the southern piedmont of the BuqingshanMoun tain about 30km farward to the Ngoring Lake. Beginning in the middle Pleistocene, the Buqingshan and the Baryan Har Moun tain swere strongly up lifted, and the highmoun tainous zone upw ards in to the cryospherice in about 700 ka BP and developed three larger icecaps on the Buqingshan Mountain, ZagariMoun tain and Baryan Har Mountain, respectively, and glacial meltwater flows in to basins and depressions, a large glacial water lake appeared first. In the Last In terglacial stage (30- 40 ka BP) the lake water flowed and erosed along the fault broken zone, cut down a rivervalley and link to the Yellow River, and uniformbiglake separate in to many small lakes. Up the max imum stage of the Last Glaciation (about 20 ka BP) thick-sandy loess layer and actives desert dunewre formed in the Mian shaling Hill, Xinxinhai Lake and so more because of drycold climate, lake level dropping, strongly wind activity and lake beach extending at that time. The Madoi River was formed in the Holocene Megathemal at about 6 ka BP. As global climatie warms, the meanannual air temperature of the watershed region became warmer, and mean annual air temperature increasing rate is 0.08Cö1 0a atM adoi County, low limit of permafrost have shift up 58m atM adoi Town. In range of Madoi County there were 4077 lakes in past, bu t now or more small lakes have dried up , and others are contracted and salinized. The degration of eco-environemnt in the source region has became very serious, the degraded grasslands reached to 24143300Mu, which is 70% of total grassland area, 63.7% of to tal area at 1999 inM adoi County. The land desert if ication is expanding rapidly, and the expanding rate rose from 3.9% in 1970s to 20% in 1990s. The Gyaring Lake (526km2 in area) and the Ngo ring Lake (610.7km2 in area) are the two largest lakes in the region. And lake level of the Ngoring Lake has dropped 5m in past 20 years more, and outflow discharge of the lake is 7.8m 3ös in 1993 and on ly 2. 71m 3ös in 1999, and the outflow discharge of the Gyaring L ake in to the Ngoring Lake is only 0. 006m 3ös, resulting in an evidently lake level dropping in the Ngoring Lake in 1999, which reached up 1cm dropp ing per 4～5 days. The biodiversity is decreased, too.The region is fragile area of ecological environment because of the vast cryospheric conditions. After degeneration of grassland ecological environment, the reclamation of ecological condition will become more difficult. Thus, improvement and protection of ecological environment are important task s for keeping an ecological environment system balance, and have sign if icance for sustainable development in the region.