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Simple Summary: In recent years, the shortage of cow stocks and the reduction of cow breeders in China have caused a shortage of cattle resources and a high price of calves, which has become a bottleneck restricting the further development of China's beef cattle industry. At present, there are few studies on the decision-making behavior of cow breeding in China. In order to explore the factors that affect the decision-making behavior on cow breeding by beef cattle farmers, this paper uses field survey data to make an empirical analysis through the Logit ISM model. The results show that the age of the breeder, the breeding year, the planting area of forage, market expectations, the loan amount, the breeding method policy publicity and policy subsidies are significant factors affecting the decision-making behavior of beef cattle farmers on cow breeding. The beef cattle industry is an important part of herbivorous animal husbandry and an important industry to enrich the dietary structure of residents and promote the income of farmers and herdsmen. The cow is an important foundation to support the healthy development of the beef cattle industry, which is related to the stability of cattle sources and the sustainable development of the industry. However, in recent years, the shortage of cows in our country has led to the shortage of cattle resources and the high price of calves, which has restricted the further development of our beef cattle industry. In order to explore the factors that affect the decision-making behavior behind cow breeding and to find the right policy to mobilize the enthusiasm for cow breeding, based on the field survey of five provinces (cities and regions), including Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, this paper conducts an empirical analysis through the Logit ISM model. The results show that market expectation is the surface factor that directly affects the decision-making behavior of cow breeding. The influencing factors of the middle layer are policy propaganda, policy subsidies, breeding years, and feeding methods. The deep root factors are the age of the breeder, the amount of loan, and whether to plant feed crops. Based on this, this paper proposes that we should actively promote the importance of cow breeding, strengthen policy support for cow breeding, formulate scientific and reasonable subsidy policies for cows, innovate financial support methods to solve the problem of fund shortage of farmers, and develop forage resources and reduce the breeding cost of cows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dam operation has been widely deployed to mitigate the risks of ice jam flooding, but it may result in a decrease in the discharging capacities of downstream river channels. The Ningxia-Inner Mongolia reach of the Huanghe River (Yellow River) has historically suffered numerous disasters caused by ice jam flooding, and three large dams have been jointly operated to mitigate such risks since 1968. Whilst the resultant significant increases in both the annual runoff and mean water temperature during the ice jam flooding seasons helped to shorten the freezing-up duration and reduce the thickness of the ice cover, a significant channel shrinkage occurred in the reach when the dam operation took place under the input of a relatively larger amount of sediment from the upstream. In the new flow regime that commenced in 2008, a detailed examination of the river channel-form adjustments and the resultant changes to the discharging capacities identified a slight increase in the discharging capacity of the channel along the entire study reach. This was mainly due to a significantly smaller amount of sediment load being carried by a slightly increased annual runoff. Whilst it was demonstrated that the dam operation was still an effective means for mitigating the risk of ice jam flooding in the Ningxia-Inner Mongolia reach under the new flow regime, care needs to be taken when the favorable flow-sediment condition changes. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the dam operation appeared to vary significantly at the channel sections of different planforms; thus, more detailed studies are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]