C4E, CHINESE RESEARCHERS FORM ENVIRONMENTAL PARTNERSHIP
In a signing event last September, Purdue officials and members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Applied Ecology formalized the partnership for establishing the China-U.S. Joint Research Laboratory on Sustainable Ecosystem. The global partnership will create programs that offer opportunities for student, scholar and faculty exchange in research and study, says John Bickham, C4E director. Research areas will include biogeochemical cycles of carbon and nitrogen, soil biology and biochemistry, fate and transport of contaminants, and water processes and modeling. Special emphasis also will be placed on organizing joint seminars, symposia, short-term academic programs and academic meetings as well as exchange of research and educational materials, publications and academic information, he says. “Sustainable management and effective remediation technologies are needed in all regions of China, where population growth and rapid urbanization have intensified the competition for land use with consequences for agricultural productivity, water-use allocation, and soil and water quality,” Bickham says. “Similar problems exist in the United States due, for example, to urban sprawl and pressures to increase biofuel production driven by government subsidy programs.” Xingguo Han, director of the Institute of Applied Ecology, says he is excited about the Purdue-Chinese partnership, which builds on an existing collaboration between the two groups along with researchers at the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. “As globally dominant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, China and the United States have a mutual interest in understanding their consequences,” Han says. “The goals of this partnership between Purdue and the Chinese Academy of Sciences are essential if we are going to make the impact needed in this area for the future of China and the United States.” The foundation for the new China-U.S. partnership stems from the creation of the China-U.S. Joint Research Center for Ecosystem and Environmental Change, formed in Beijing in 2006. Known as the China-U.S. Joint Research, this effort is addressing the combined effects of climate change and human activities on regional and global ecosystems and explores technologies for restoration of degraded environments. That research initiative includes Purdue’s Center for the Environment, the Center for Environmental Biotechnology and the Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment at the University of Tennessee, and the Joint Institute for Biological Sciences at the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. Chinese partners include the Institute of Geographical Science and Natural Resources Research and the University of Science and Technology of China.
The Center for the Environment is synergizing relationships between faculty from many disciplines, industry, the public and the government to respond to environmental challenges. Contact us at www.purdue.edu/dp/environment. |
The Center for the Environment and the Chinese Academy of Sciences are forming a five-year partnership focused on researching the environmental challenges posed by population growth and urbanization in the two countries.