20 years anniversary
20 years of cooperation between CIGEM and IfU
From April 29 through 30 a symposium on the subject “Sustainable Management of Groundwater Resources” took place in commemoration of 20 years of cooperation between the China Institute of Geo-environmental Monitoring (CIGEM) and the Institute of Environmental Engineering at ETH Zurich. The cooperation was initiated by the late Vice Minister of the then Ministry of Geology, Mr. Hongren Zhang, who brought together Prof. Wengpeng Li from CIGEM and Prof. Wolfgang Kinzelbach from IfU, ETH Zurich.
The symposium was attended by more than 40 persons, mostly scientists, who were at some point connected to the cooperation. The cooperation progressed in three phases: it started from the Yanqi Basin in Xinjiang Province, continued to the Heihe Basin and finally ended up in the North China Plain. The Yanqi basin posed the problem of using too much river water for irrigation, which had 3 undesirable outcomes, the salinization of soils due to the resulting high groundwater levels, the lack of water for the downstream ecology and the salinization of the lake. Three common Ph. D. students (1 Swiss, 2 Chinese) worked in the project. They analyzed the problem using field methods and modelling and finally came up with a management plan. In the Heihe Basin the situation was similar: Too much upstream river water use led to drying up of the downstream terminal lake and the degradation of downstream ecosystems. At this point the state council ordered that one half of the incoming water had to be left for the downstream. As a consequence, farmers replaced surface water by groundwater. In two irrigation districts, the problem of overpumping showed up and was resolved by a new type of management model using smart water metering and swipe cards carrying the allowed water right. Four postdocs and one Ph. D. students worked on real time modelling of the aquifer and the optimization of water allocation. The work was strengthened by a Sino-Swiss MoU between SDC and the China Geological Survey, to which CIGEM belongs.In the North China Plain finally, one of the most serious sites world-wide concerning over-abstraction of groundwater, postdocs and students united in field work, resource assessment and the building of a decision support model geared towards the control of groundwater levels well above the red line in Guantao County.
Besides these main projects, there was more cooperation on artificial recharge of groundwater, thawing of permafrost, use remote sensing in groundwater balancing and more. The 20 years were a great opportunity to educate students and expose researchers to real-life problems. The work not only led to a large number of publications in international journals but also to concrete ideas and measures for improving the local water resources management. The 20 years can be characterized by fruitful cooperation and enduring friendship.
