China's central water authority issued a set of regulations Tuesday to try to prevent its second longest waterway from drying up due to over-exploitation.

The regulations, issued by the Yellow River Conservancy Commission of the Ministry of Water Resources, require 11 provincial regions along the river to monitor water usage and the commission will keep a record of water flows into and from a region.

Stretching 5,464 kilometers (3,387 miles) from the northwest Tibetan plateau to the east coast, the "Mother River" of China dried up in different sections of the lower reaches on more than 1,000 days between 1972 and 1999 due to excessive exploitation.

The river has seen no sections dry up for seven years thanks to improved supervision, raising hopes that water levels might be restored.

Li Guoying, head of the commission, said the regulations offered legal support for better protection of the river, adding that administrative, engineering, technical and economic measures would also be adopted.

Major water conservancy projects had been built along the river and its main tributaries to retain water in times of need, he said.

The regulations require industries to pay for improving rural irrigation channels and the right to use the water.

Water prices will also be raised to make the public aware of water use efficiency.

The commission would use advanced technologies to forecast next year's water flows into the Yellow River and conduct computer simulations of water transfers before starting operations, said Li.

The Yellow River, which supplies about 10 percent of China's 1.3 billion population and 240 million mu (16 million hectares) of farmland, is the biggest water resource in northwest and north China.

Source: Xinhua