Our 2021

Annual Highlights

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Our 2021 in less than 80 seconds

August. Prof Jianyun Zhang was awarded the Ho Leung Ho Lee 2021 S&T Progress Award in recognition of his long-term contribution to hydrology and water management. Prof Zhang’s research and innovation focuses on hydrology, flood forecasting and management, dam safety and climate adaptation.

November. The Chinese Academy of Engineering released the result of its 2021 election. Prof Hongwu Tang, Executive President of YICODE, was elected member of the Academy. 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.

November. Prof Yu Zhongbo, leading scientist of the Sustainable Water Use Center, was elected chair of the intergovernmental council of UNESCO-IHP. His research focuses on air-land-surface/groundwater interaction, surface-soil flow interaction, air-land surface-hydrology coupling model construction.

October to December. Profs Shanshui Yuan and Saiyu Yuan were both enlisted into national talent programmes. Shanshui’s research focused on hydrometeorology, land-atmosphere interactions and extreme drought/flood events, and he is a distinguished professor of Jiangsu Province. Saiyu is winner of Young Teacher Fund of the Fok Ying-tung Education Foundation, and specialises in river dynamics and its eco-environmental responses.

December. Entrusted by the provincial DRC of Jiangsu, five consultancy projects concluded in success, including topics on the east route S2N Water Diversion, phosphorus pollution of Taihu Lake, protection of the Yangtze dolphins, riparian chemical industries and shorelines in Jiangsu.

East route S2N Water Diversion, the project analyses and compare different plan’s capacities of flood discharge and water conveyance, capital investment, and impacts on ecosystems and local economy, and institutional requirements.

Phosphorus control of Taihu Lake by Diverting Water from Yangtze, the project compares potential plans by their effects on phosphorus loading, hydrodynamic improvements, and algae growth and concentration, and looks for the optimal solution.

Protection of the Yangtze Porpoises and Development of Water Transportation, the project compares two schemes of water transport operations at the Hechangzhou Isle (close to Zhengjiang), and discusses possible ex-situ conservation of the Yangtze Porpoises.

Migration of Riparian Chemical Industries, the project analyses the production chain behind and interconnections between the riparian chemical industries along the Yangtze in Jiangsu, and proposes schemes for their migration and optimisation of production.

Yangtze Shoreline Protection in Jiangsu, the project attempts to define the scope of shoreline protection in Jiangsu and quantitatively assess reasonable development and ecological rehabilitation. It also discusses an integrated way of managing the Yangtze shorelines.

November to December. Teams led by Profs Chunhui Lu, Yintang Wang and Guoqing Wang won funding from the National Key R&D Programme to study groundwater, flood management, and environmental changes in the headwaters of the Yellow River.

Prof Lu leads the study on groundwater over-extraction in the Yellow-Huai-Hai River Basins of Northern China. They will study the evolution of groundwater reserves under over-extraction, and their temporal and spatial relations to water availabilities, ecological functions and geological conditions. This allows them to discuss the consequences including degradation of natural wetlands, ground subsidence and salinity intrusion.

Prof Y Wang’s project aims at key challenges in flood management in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. It aims to improve flood management and emergency response by paying close attention to the integration of flood defence standards, management of flood retention areas, precise detection of dike seepage, and decision-making based on multiple sources of information.

Prof G Wang’s team is to study environmental changes in the headwaters of the Yellow River, and aims to improve the understanding of the relation between water availability and ecosystems under these changes. They expect their research to contribute to the field of eco-hydrology and water system simulation and forecasting, and support conservation and green development of the Yellow River Basin.

November. A project of Prof Qiuwen Chen and his team on climate change and water security won the innovation research group funding of NSF China. They are focusing on the impact of climate change on aquatic ecology and water security of river basins, and attempt to understand the relationship between warming, hydrological responses, and ecological processes, which allows them to forecast biomass migration and aquatic ecosystem changes, and propose adaptation strategies.

December. Team led by Prof Yun Li won the Grand Prize of Dayu Award for S&T Progress. Three more teams led by Profs Ke Zhang, Qiuwen Chen and Zongzhi Wang won first class prizes, and team led by Prof Yuan Wang won another second class prize.

April. The 3rd International Forum on Water Security and Sustainability was held. Around 500 people joined in person in Nanjing, and more than 2,000 from 20 countries took part online.

With and regards

from our editing team

Left to right: T Zhou, Z Yu, R Mu, J Chen, C Li. Photo by Zhaofeng Chen.

This page has used the photographs from the following sources (as in the order on the page) whom we’d like to thank:

浣紗人、 WeelStone、 賈夢龍、 fllee、 董辰兴、 东京村子、 Mabel Amber、 陈俊杰、 Zhang Haobo、生态环境部黄河流域生态环境监督管理局