Delayed morphological adjustment of the Yellow and lower Wei Rivers upstream of the Sanmenxia dam at multi-temporal scales

•Delayed channel evolution was revealed at multi-temporal scales.•Retrogressive aggradation migrated upstream beyond the backwater zone.•Conditions in previous ∼4 years cumulatively impact current channel evolution. The delayed response of channel evolution upstream of dams to base-level changes has not yet been thoroughly understood. In this paper, we studied the delayed response of the morphological adjustment at the middle Yellow and lower Wei Rivers upstream of the Sanmenxia Dam, China, based on data of water volume, sediment load, cross-sectional profiles, and erosion/deposition volumes during 1960–2018. Channel evolution upstream of the dam obviously lagged behind the dynamic pool level fluctuation during the first approximately two decades following dam closure, when retrogressive aggradation/erosion phases were identified. The retrogressive aggradation migrated ∼200 km upstream to the tributary of the Yellow River, i.e., the Wei River. The impact of base-level rise may propagate backwards behind the beginning of the backwater reach, reflecting indirect backwater effects. The dam has been operated by the controlled release of “storing the clear water during nonflood seasons and discharging the turbid water during flood seasons” since 1974, and the reservoir has generally been eroded during flood seasons and aggraded during nonflood seasons. The erosion center was defined as the subreach between two adjacent cross-sections with the greatest erosion rate during the flood season, and the aggradation center was defined as that with the greatest aggradation rate during the nonflood season. The results showed that the erosion/deposition centers migrated towards the dam by ∼50–60 km during 1974–2010 and migrated upstream after ∼2010. The location of the erosion/deposition centers was related not only to the water and sediment conditions and backwater length in the current year but also to these conditions in the previous ∼4 years, reflecting the delayed response of channel adjustment or the cumulative impact of pervious conditions on channel morphology. This study helps to inform future reservoir management and the delayed channel response to base level change caused by different natural and anthropogenic disturbances.