Mr. Xu Xiaofeng

Scientists(1)

Scientists(2)

    Jointly hosted by CASS and IMET, the International Forum on Integrated River Basin Management & South-North Water Diversion Project was held on 7-8 June 2004 in Beijing. Dr. Xu Xiaofeng, deputy administrator of CMA, attended the forum and made an address in the opening ceremony.

    Approximately 60 foreign participants attended the forum, including scholars, engineers, enterprisers, economists and officials from Italy, European Union Organization, Netherlands, Russia, Brazil, Iraq and Indonesia. The participants also included 160 scholars and engineers from South-North Water Diversion Committee (SNWDC) of the State Council, CASS, MWR, CMA and CEPA. The opening addresses were also made by Mr. Roberto Tortoli, deputy minister of IMET, Prof. Chen Jiagui, deputy president of CASS, Mr. Suo Lisheng, deputy minister of MWR, Mr. Zhu Guangyao, deputy administrator of CEPA, Mr. Ning Yuan, deputy director-general of SNWDC office, Mr. Zhang Mao, deputy mayor of Beijing Municipal Government respectively.

    In the opening ceremony, Dr. Xu Xiaofeng firstly congratulated to the opening of the meeting on behalf of Dr. Qin Dahe. He pointed out that, China is among those regions in the world with most severe water scarcity, and the impact of climate change on water resources in China would be disadvantageous. Under the background of global warming, large area drought has continuously happened in the northern part of China for four years, where the annual radial runoff of the natural rivers trends to further decrease and annual average evaporation of the valleys trends to increase greatly. Therefore, the South-North Water Diversion Project, as a key water conservancy project, would be beneficial to the offspring, and also an available attempt of adaptation of human society on climate change. CMA would actively take part in the related scientific research to provide scientific basis for the prophase plan and smooth implementation of the project. Dr. Dong Wenjie, deputy director-general of NCC/CMA, also participated in the meeting and attended the working group meeting together with Dr. Xu Xiaofeng.

    The South-North Water Diversion Project is a great water integrated management project, it aims at transferring water from the south to the semi-arid northern regions of China through East Route, Middle Route and West Route, by connecting the four main rivers (Yangtze river, Huanghe river, Huaihe river and Haihe river) together. The East Route is the antecedent part of the project, including complex hydraulic and infrastructural system of rivers, canals, lakes, reservoirs and pumping stations. It is such a complicated project that relates to hydrology, hydraulics, agriculture, climate change, environmental engineering, economy, law and social sciences. In order to ensure the implementation of the project and the sustainable social and economical development in the whole region, the CASS and IMET have set up the project titled "SWIMER - Sustainable Water Integrated Management of the East Route in the South -North diversion project in China" within the framework of the Sino-Italian Cooperation Programme.

    The SWIMER aims to comprehensively evaluate the impact of human activities on environment, social economy and climate change, established a water management system for optimizing regions along the East Route between the three rivers (Huanghe river, Huaihe river and Haihe river) and the Yangtze river, in order to fulfill the water resources management strategy and ensure the harmonic development of society, economy and environment in the whole region. In addition, the project would offer a multi-subject platform for the scholars to improve the international exchange between Chinese and Italian institutions. The meeting is an important symbol of the startup of the project. The International Expert Group (IEG), composed of the experts from CASS, MWR and CMA, has been established. Dr. Dong Wenjie is the member of IEG.

    The forum sufficiently showed the cross of social sciences and natural sciences, and mainly focused on: 1) law and regulation framework of integrated management; 2) possible impact on economy, society, climate, hydrology and environment; 3) experiences of pollution disposal, water resources management and ecological environment protection in the world famous river systems, such as Venice river, Danube river, Sun river in Viet Nam, Mozambique river, Zambia river, Brazil river, Iraq wetland, Haihe river, Huanghe river and Huaihe river; 4) problems in the implementation of East Route in the South-North Diversion Project and its solving suggestions. Totally 48 officials and scholars made presentations in the forum. Among them, five experts from NCC/CMA delivered their reports on the assessment on the impact of climate change on the future precipitation in valleys of China, etc.

    During the meeting, Mr. Antonio Navarra and Mr. Sergio Castellari from INGV of Italy paid a visit to NCC/CMA and joined a seminar with the NCC experts. Mr. Navarra delivered a report titled "climate change scenarios and its impact on change of precipitation" which emphasized on the recent progress in climate modeling research and development. Dr. Dong Wenjie and Dr. Li Weijing warmly received them and discussed the future bilateral cooperative plan.