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]]>Starting from late June, we will host a series of events to celebrate that. We will keep updating this page to include different events. Please stay tuned.
Dr. Lian’s major research interests are ecosystem restoration of wetlands, flood risk modeling, hydrological simulation for sponge city design, modeling of watershed hydrology and non-point source pollution, ecological environment vulnerability assessment and optimal management, modeling of groundwater and pollutant transport, coupling modeling of surface water and groundwater, and sustainable development of water and ecological environment, etc. He has developed the coupled hydrological and hydraulic modeling system (CHHMS) by coupling hydrological, groundwater model, water quality, and other models. He was the principal investigator and leading scientist for more than twenty federal, state, and local agency projects in the United States. He has also been the principal investigator for about thirty projects from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other agencies in China. He published his first SCI paper in the Journal of Hydrology in 1991 and has published around 60 papers in the SCI journals including Earth Science Reviews, Journal of Hydrology and etc. with the highest single paper citation of 385 and H-index of 19. He was selected into the list of highly cited scientists in 2017.
“Along the night goes the cold, and a spring morning is racing to unfold.” Poet SHI Qing of the Tang wrote in his poem, Lunar New Year Eve. The arrival of the Spring Festival means the bitter winter is about to come to an end and another spring of renewal and refreshment is about to start. On this occasion, we would like to wish everybody a Happy New Year of the Tiger. May you enjoy good health and all wishes come true.
The Spring Festival is usually a time for family reunion for Chinese. Some people might have already been joined by family, some on their way to be joined, but there are also some who could not go back for various reasons. Regardless where you are, our good wishes are with you.
]]>In 2021, our paces in the conservation and green development of the Yangtze River were as firm as always, and we take proud in this fruitful year.
We are proud of our research. 2021 saw the conclusion of??five consultancy projects entrusted by the provincial Development and Reform Commission of Jiangsu. These projects provided very solid basis for policy making around the east route of the South-to-North Water Diversion, phosphorus control of the Taihu Lake, protection of the Yangtze?porpoise while making better use of the golden waterway of the Yangtze, migration and sustainable development of the riparian chemical industries, and protection of the river shorelines in Jiangsu. We have successfully obtained funding from the National Key R&D Programmes of the 14th Five Year Plan for three projects, and the Innovation Research Group Fund of the Natural Science Foundation of China for another project. Our?Yangtze River Protection and High Quality Development Report (2020)?was successfully released. We provided expert opinions as a growing think-tank for protection of the?intertidal zones of the Yangtze Estuary, restoration of coastlines and disaster mitigation, flood risk management and related topics among many others.
We are proud of our team. In 2021, we are very honoured to have been joined by 11 more outstanding scientists of this field. Moreover, the YICODE team is honoured that we have one more scientist elected as member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, three enlisted into China’s national talent programmes, one more laurelled as Jiangsu’s distinguished professor, another PhD student granted the provincial innovation fund, and one more team selected as Jiangsu’s innovation group. We are pleased that we also won the S&T Progress Award of the?Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation, and five prizes under the National Da Yu Award, an award that is named after Yu the Great for outstanding water managers. We also feel excited that Prof Zhongbo Yu has been elected Chair of the UNESCO-IHP Intern-governmental Council and Prof Chunhui Lu invited to co-edit??Water Resources Research.
We are also proud of the influence we are making. Sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, we hosted the 3rd International Forum on Water Security and Sustainability in April, and saw the participation, many virtually online, of more than 2,000 people from around 20 countries. The Yangtze Lectures, our series talks on integrated river basin management, invited Profs Jiuhui Qu, Chao Wang, and Zuxin Xu, three CAE members, and Prof Chunmiao Zheng of?Southern University of Science and Technology, to share their understandings and latest research. This summer, we also offered free courses to help students to prepare for their research they were about to start for their post-graduate studies.
While we greet the new year with aspirations, we also understand that the journey ahead requires passion, resolution and courage. But our mission we see in integrated river basin management stays the same, and will continue to guide and motivate us in our research and innovation.
Happy New Year and may all your wishes come true!
]]>Prof Tang has devoted his career to studies in hydro and river dynamics. His wonderful contribution is particularly important for management of China’s rivers and lakes in its plain area.
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]]>In December 2013, a blue “artery”, the east route of the South-to-North Water Diversion, set off from Yangzhou on the northern shore of the Yangtze to deliver water northward along the Grand Canal up to Tianjin. The route passes my hometown on the shore of Weishan Lake — Jining of Shandong Province. Weishan Lake is one of the Nansi (Southern Four) Lakes, four connected lakes to the southwest of the Province. However, this area is under?severe threat of enduring drought, groundwater over-exploitation and water pollution.?Though water diversion eased the tension between socio-economic development and ecological environment protection, ensuring both economic and ecological wellbeing still needs the focus on aquatic ecology, water pollution control and water sustainability. This also fits very well into the global theme defined in the IHP-VIII 2014-2021 Strategic Plan — Water Security: Addressing Local, Regional and Global Challenges.
My research focuses on groundwater under changing environment, analyzing groundwater dynamic evolution driven by both natural and human factors, and evaluating the risk of surface water pollution on groundwater environment through revealing surface water-groundwater interaction. Groundwater over-exploitation has caused seawater intrusion in some coastal areas in China, leading to a series of ecological, environmental and geological issues, especially in water-scarce areas. Preventing seawater intrusion still faces great unknown challenges. Therefore, reliable seawater intrusion prediction under complex hydrogeological conditions to inform suitable counter-strategies against pollution is of great practical significance. To better solve these problems, my research aims to combine hydrodynamics, statistics, machine learning and optimization methods to improve the accuracy of groundwater pollution prediction, and quantify the impact of uncertainty factors on water resources decision-making, which thereby provides scientific support for tailored protection.
I am thrilled to start my new position at the Yangtze Institute for Conservation and Development, and work with the experts in this field. I am more than willing to contribute my expertise to social economic development and ecological protection of the Yangtze River Basin.
For more information about Dr. Yin please refer to her personal page
I was born in Nantong, a city to the north of the Yangtze Estuary. While many of us depend on it for livelihoods, she also brought a great many disasters, like the extreme flooding in 1998 and 2020 and the drought in 2009. Under warming climate, more frequent and intense extreme events are projected to occur in the Yangtze River basin, threatening life and economic losses. My research focuses on extreme hydrometeorological events under global warming, which I think is both scientifically and practically significant for the Yangtze River basin.
Specifically, I’m interested?in soil moisture-atmosphere interactions, with emphasis on the role of land-atmosphere interactions under drought and flood scenarios. The goal of my research is to better understand the causes and physical processes of extreme events and to improve accuracy and reduce uncertainties in modelling. Currently, the causes of extreme events at process-level are not fully understood because of limited observations. In June 2019, the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) listed 23 unsolved problems in hydrology, which include variability of extremes, measurements and data and interfaces with society etc. To better answer the scientific questions, I will continue to work on (1) analyzing the spatial and temporal variabilities of extremes under global warming; (2) investigating the role of soil moisture in land-atmosphere interactions and how this impacts drought and extreme precipitation; (3) quantitatively interpreting the responses of land-surface process to climate change; (4) improving the reliability?of modelling extreme events.
I look forward to working with YICODE colleagues and contributing to the protection and green development of the Yangtze River basin.
For more information about Dr. Yuan please refer to his personal page
We hope every new year of happiness, and we have to strive for it with actual actions. Under global changes such as the warming climate, we need to redefine happiness by adopting a green way of living. We could start from these little bits in daily life to lower our carbon and water footprint. This is also in alignment of our tradition of being hard-working and thrifty. Let’s make a responsible and low-carbon Spring Festival a new fashion.
The Covid pandemic is still raging and with increased travel of people and goods, so is the risk of exposure. To celebrate a happy and healthy Spring Festival, we encourage people to celebrate it locally or via the internet to avoid gathering. Walking or cycling might be a better choice for short distance travelling, as they are low-carbon, help social distancing, and are good workouts. Killing three birds with one stone, isn’t it?
If you have to travel, we encourage people to take trains instead of flights. The carbon dioxide (CO2) emission from transport accounts for more than one fifth of the global total, and is expected to double by 2050 if no measure to taken. Among all means of transport, road transport takes the lion share of emission, with aviation following its lead. However, the latter is projected to increase very quickly (Creutzig et al., 2015). 91% of flights departing China are domestic ones, accounting for 70% of the emission from China’s civil aviation (Graver, Zhang and Rutherford, 2019).
High-speed trains are seen as an important way for carbon neutrality of the transport sector (IEA, 2017). Their high efficiency in energy consumption is making a great contribution to China’s low-carbon economy and environment-friendly society. The boom of high speed trains in China in recent years also sees improved coverage and service.
Spring Festival is a tradition for family reunion and a big feast when excessive food waste is often produced. Some families prepare too much food for the holiday and allow too much to go to the trash bin. According to the MOST Handbook for Saving Energy and Cutting Emission, wasting every 0.5 kg of rice, for example, creates 0.47 kg of CO2emission. If each of the 1.4 billion of us avoid the waste of 0.5 kg rice, we could cut the emission by 658,000 tons.
Meat-based food is our important source of energy and nutrition, yet taking too much of that is neither healthy for ourselves or good for the environment (Godfray et al., 2018). The production of animal based food accounts for a large share of the emission from the food industry (ibid). According to a life cycle assessment of plant and animal based food in China, mutton has the highest carbon footprint and reddish the lowest among the studied food, with the former being almost 600 times higher than the latter (Xu and Lan, 2016). Another global model study shows that, while complying with standards of healthy dietary, consuming more plant-based food lowers mortality rate by 6-10% and 29-70% of emission from the food industry (Springmann et al., 2016).
From farm to fork, feed production and husbandry contribute to the majority of the carbon footprint of animal-based food, but we cannot ignore the emission from transporting and storing food (Nijdam, Rood and Westhoek, 2012). Therefore, we would like to encourage everyone to not only eat more vegetables and less meat, but also more local and seasonal food.
It’s a tradition for us to wear new clothes for the Spring Festival. While we are happily dressing ourselves up, we usually neglect the true cost and pollution of the fashion industry, which is the second largest polluting sector (Brenot et al., 2019). The fashion industry produces 20% of waste water and 10% of carbon emission globally (UNEP, 2018). Though the textile industry is one pillar of China’s economy, its environmental costs are also high. For example 70% of Southeast China’s water is polluted by the industry (Brenot et al., 2019). Producing one T-shirt consumes 2,700 litres of water, but that number rises to 3,700 for a pair of jeans (Aivazidou and Tsolakis, 2019). Moreover, supply chains of fast fashion are usually supported by intensive labour, which makes them susceptible to exploitation of disadvantaged workers or even child labour, raising global concerns and debates (Perry and Towers, 2013).
Therefore we would like to encourage everyone to adopt a way of low-carbon clothing, like avoid purchasing unnecessary garments, reduce cleaning, do more hand washing instead of using washing machines, and recycle unwanted items.
The Spring Festival often sees peaks of energy consumption. 16-50% of global energy use is consumed in residential areas (Saidur, Masjuki and Jamaluddin, 2007), and the proportion is increasing (Allouhi et al., 2015). Because of global warming, air conditioning is expected to consume more energy, especially for the purpose of cooling (Zhou et al., 2016). However, the reduced heating demand could hardly offset the energy consumption for cooling (Davis and Gertler, 2015). Research shows that high uptake of energy saving measures among US people, without evidently impacting life quality, reduces emission by 7.4% (Dietz et al., 2009). Another study in Hangzhou, China shows that improved use of domestic appliances saves 14% of energy consumption (Ouyang and Hokao, 2009).
Therefore using appliances wisely during the holidays, including lowering your heater by one degree, turning off lights when you leave the room, using stairs instead of elevators, and disconnecting devices from the sockets after use, could contribute to lowering your carbon footprint.
Recycling has been enlisted by China as an emerging industry with strategic importance. Recycle and reuse are crucial for protecting the environment, saving energy and cutting costs. To enable recycle and reuse, waste sorting is a crucial precedent. Among municipal wastes from daily life, organic wastes make up a majority, and other recyclable matters are often paper and plastic (Xiao et al., 2018). However, some of them, like delivery packaging and food containers are often difficult to recycle through market mechanism because of their “widespread use, low weight and added value, and high costs” (MOC, 2019) and therefore needs extensive public participation for recycling and reusing these valuable resources.
The Spring Festival often marks a peak in the production of municipal wastes. We need to take part in recycling as usual to not only contribute to sustainability but also fight the pandemic. From 1 November 2020, it has become compulsory in Nanjing to sort through your wastes before disposal. During the holidays, why not spend a few minutes reading through the rules and make recycling a life habit. This avoids further contamination of the environment and makes our lives more sustainable.
We think every little step counts, and believe that our joint efforts will become a tremendous power to drive the engine of sustainable development.
]]>Hongwu Tang, Executive President
As we approach the end of 2020, we will soon usher into a brand new year, which is also the second new year since the founding of YICODE. On behalf of the Institute, we would like to extend our heartfelt thanks and sincere wishes to all the people who have supported us.
In 2020, thanks to the support from the Jiangsu Provincial Government, China Three Gorges Corporation, the Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Education and other partner organisations, we were able to stay faithful to our aspirations of protecting the Yangtze River and promoting quality development in its basin, and our year of 2020 has been highly productive.
Our research in 2020 has been very fruitful. YICODE was on the teams leading or closely involved in quite a number of key research and development programmes, including 6 projects and more than 20 themes under the 13th FYP research programmes of China, and more than 30 projects funded by NSFC. We launched 40 research projects on our own open funds. We succeeded in bidding for 6 projects under the “Yangtze Fund” with a total grant close to 15 million Chinese yuan. We partnered with the Provincial Development Reform Commission of Jiangsu to jointly launch 5 projects closely related to the management of Yangtze in the province, which are on the Phase II project of the east route of South-to-North Water Diversion, aquatic ecosystem of the Taihu Lake, Yangtze River transportation and protection of the Yangtze finless porpoise, relocation of riparian chemical industries, and bank protection and usage. Our blue book on protection and green development of the Yangtze, which is the first piece of literature devoted to this area, was pulished in 2020. Through internal policy consultations and external media interviews, we were able to provide our inputs on key social issues including the COVID-19 pandemic and major floods of this year. Our sturdy research has enabled us to provide crucial decision-making support as a think tank.
The development of our own team has also been encouraging in 2020. We are very grateful to the generous support from our partner organisations including Hohai University, Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute, etc., in providing us with very talented and professional brains to form a interdisciplinary team which could meet our research and development demands. We are also more than pleased that we have welcomed another 9 talented and outstanding experts like Prof. Roger Falconer to join our team.
2020 has also been a year when we became more of a influencer. The “Yangtze Lectures” we have started provides a valuable arena for crucial insiders of the field to share their ideas on the latest and most heated topics. We have hosted 5 talks this year and were pretty startled that, at the peak, around 10,000 people joined us, many virtually, for the events. We offered courses during the summer break to help young people of the field to further develop their interests and skills for their research. More than 900 students and young teachers from more than 30 organisations took the courses. In December, we hosted the first Yangtze Young Minds Innovation Forum. Many young and promising people were invited to the Forum, which provided a perfect opportunity for them to share their ideas. Currently, we are still in preparation for the 3rd ESTDS International Forum on Water Security and Sustainability, and we are thrilled to meet everyone, either in person or online, in the upcoming April.
The upcoming new year promises new challenges as well as opportunities. The YICODE team will continue to stay true to our own mission, and keep working hard towards the green development of the Yangtze River. Our principles of “innovation, collaboration, green, open and sharing” will not change, though we are at a new start of a new year to making ourselves better in supporting integrated river basin management and quality development.
With faith and expectations we are saying hi to the new year of 2021. Wish everyone happiness, health and prosperity.
(Translated by David Zhou, Zihan Yu)
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]]>I grew up in Huixian, Henan Province, which is less than 50 KM from the Yellow River. I am proud to say that I have been fed by the Mother River since I was born. However, due to anthropogenic activities and climate change, water resources in North China is becoming increasingly scarce. For example, the annual runoffs in main rivers of North China have decreased significantly in the past 62 years (1956-2018); The decrease in surface runoff and the over-exploitation of groundwater resources further cause severe consequences like the groundwater depression cone in North China Plain. On December 12, 2014, the central route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project began to transport water from the Yangtze River. Since then, whenever I returned to my hometown, I would drink water from the Yangtze River instead. This tremendous change made me happy, worried, and at the same time, reflective. What cheered me is that the problem of water scarcity in my hometown and many other regions in North China has been partially resolved. The worry is that the intensified utilization of water resources in the Yangtze River may exceed its environmental carrying capacity in the future. What I am chewing over is how to achieve sustainable development in the Yangtze River Basin under the combined effects of environment changes and human activities?
My research focuses on numerical simulation of hydrological systems, data assimilation and machine learning. Since the 1980s, distributed models have been widely used in the analysis of hydrological processes in river basins . In order to improve the accuracy of hydrological forecasts, it is necessary to fuse numerical models and observational data, and carry out data assimilation analysis. Nowadays, we have entered the “big data era”. In order to better extract information from big data, to gain new understanding of hydrological processes, and to improve the accuracy of hydrological forecasts, machine learning (especially deep learning) has been adopted by researchers, and this technique has shown promising capacities. This year, “How to optimize our country’s water resources carrying capacity under the changing environment, in order to achieve a healthy regional water balance?” was selected as one of the major scientific issues of 2020 (by the China Association for Science and Technology). In answering this question, integrating numerical models, big data analysis and machine learning can help to better predict the temporal and spatial distribution, as well as the evolution of water resources in river basins, which is important for achieving the optimal regulation of water resources carrying capacity.
In this August, I had the honor to join the YICODE team and work with prestigious experts in water sciences from China and abroad. I hope that I can use what I have learned to contribute to the sustainable use of water resources in Yangtze River Basin.
Our heartfelt condolences go out to Prof. Zheng’s family, friends and colleagues. We are thankful to Prof. Zheng for his valuable thoughts and advice for the development of YICODE. We will always miss and feel motivated because of the dedication and professionalism of his.
May Prof. Zheng rest in peace.
]]>Roger is?Emeritus Professor of Water Engineering?(previously Professor 1997-18)?and Founding Director of the?Hydro-environmental Research Centre?(1997-15) in the School of Engineering at Cardiff University, and an independent consultant in water and environmental engineering. His rich career life has centred on?water security, river and coastal?process modelling, hydro-environmental research,?flood risk?modelling and?management, and tidal and hydro-power.?He has published extensively in the field of computational hydro-environmental modelling and has delivered numerous keynote and external lectures world-wide. His wonderful expertise has allowed him to?provide?extensive?specialist advice to industry and government departments, on a wide range of water environmental impact assessment (EIA) projects, both in the UK and overseas.?He was elected President (2011-15)?and Honorary Member (2017) of the?International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research?(IAHR).?
More details of Professor Roger Falconer could be found on the following page of his.