The Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council have jointly issued an outline document on the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin.

The document will guide the country's ecological conservation and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin through to 2030 and beyond, and serve as an important basis for formulating and implementing relevant planning schemes, policies and measures, as well as building engineering projects.

The Yellow River is the second-longest river in China, measuring 5,464 km in length, and runs through nine provincial regions, including Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan and Shandong.

The Yellow River basin is an important ecological barrier, and is strategically significant for China's national development and modernization.

The scope of the planning covers relevant county-level administrative regions through which the main tributaries of the Yellow River flow, with a land area of about 1.3 million square km and a population of about 160 million at the end of 2019, says the document.