Why the Yellow River flows more than thirty feet above the ground people live on

In China, the Yellow River flows above people's rooftops. Its bed sits more than thirty feet above the ground, because the river loads itself with silt upstream, drops it on the plains, and people keep raising the levees to hold it in. Xiaolangdi Dam trapped the mud. It worked a little too well. So the engineers flipped the problem: every summer the gates open, clear water scours the riverbed, then stirred-up reservoir mud rides out in the faster current. The river now digs its own bed. Sources: • Yellow River — Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_River • Yellow River — EBSCO Research Starters — https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/science/yellow-river • PMC9099827 — https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9099827/