WASWAC: The second International Youth Forum of Soil and Water Conservation held in Moscow |
The second
International Youth Forum of Soil and Water Conservation (2nd IYFSWC) with the title of Climate
Change Impacts on Sediment Dynamics: Measurement, Modelling and Management was
held in beautiful Moscow successfully during August 26-31.
A corner of
forum
This forum was
sponsored by WASWAC, and organized by the Lomonosov Moscow State University
(MSU). It is the second session following the first session held in Nanchang in
October 2015. It is worldwide forum focuses on the youth who are contributed in
the soil and water conservation. Totally 137 participants from 14 countries
including China, Iran, Morocco, Russia, Austria, Egypt, Italy, Nigeria, Serbia,
Belgium, Germany, Japan, Poland and Ukraine have attended this
forum.
Erosion, sediment
delivery and sediment transport are natural geological processes that influence
the form and function of terrestrial and aquatic systems. These processes are
central to landscape and soil development, geochemical cycling, material fluxes
and river channel morphology across the globe. In addition, they strongly
influence water quality and ecosystems of the world's rivers and oceans. A wide
range of natural (i.e. wildfire) and anthropogenic (harvesting, agriculture,
urbanization) disturbances alter the rates and magnitudes of erosion and related
sediment dynamics which can have significant economic and social implications.
While several important changes to the earth's surface have resulted from
socio-economic (i.e. population growth. Land change, resource extraction)
factors, there is increasing concern for the potential importance of climate
change as a driver of future changes in erosion and sediment dynamics and the
wide range impacts thereof. This forum specifically addresses the issue of
climate change and its impact on erosion and sediment dynamics with special
emphasis on its implications for measurement, modelling and management of
sediment in a changing world.
Dr Sergey Chalov,
the deputy dean for international affairs of Faculty of Geography in MSU was
hosted the opening ceremony and gave a warm welcome for all participants.
Prof. Li Rui, the
president of WASWAC, Prof. Ning Duihu, the Secretary-general of WASWAC, Prof.
Sergey Dobrolyubov, the dean of Faculty of Geography in MSU, and the
corresponding member of RAS, Prof. Nikolay Kasimov, the president of Faculty of
Geography in MSU, and the Academician of RAS, Prof. Kazimierz Banasik, the
vice-president of ICCE, and Prof. Paolo Porto, the ICCE Secretary, attended this
opening ceremony and gave speeches.
In President Li Rui’s speech, a
brief introduction on the forum was provided, a heartful welcome was delivered,
an earnest expectation for the young generation was expressed, and a good wish
for the forum was given.
The opening
ceremony
During the forum,
6 outstanding scholars provided all participants a very high-level academic
keynote presentation. The 6 keynote speakers are:
1.Prof. Jean
Poesen, from the devision of Geography and Toruism within the Department of
Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium;
2.Dr Peter
Strauss, the head of the institute for Land and Water Management Research within
the Federal Agency for Water Management.
3.Prof. Helmut
Habersack, the UNESCO Chair on Integrated River Research and Management, from
Hydraulic Engineering and Modelling at the Department of Water, Atmosphere and
Environment at the University of Natural Resources and Life Science, Vienna,
Austria.
4.Prof. Valentin
Golosov, from Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Fluvial Process, Faculty of
Geography in MSU.
5.Prof. Lei
Tingwu, from the China Agricultural University, one of the Editor-in-Chief for
WASWAC official journal - International Soil and Water Conservation
Research.
6.Prof. Miodrag
Zlatic, the former president of WASWAC, and a full professor at Faculty of
Forestry, Belgrade University, Serbia.
For the young
participants, to provide a full platform for them to communicate, to express,
and to discuss what researches they have been involved, up to 74 oral
presentations and 57 poster presentations have been arranged in 5 oral rooms and
1 exhibition hall during this forum. All participants got the chance to share
their research with others.
To make all
participants clear about the achievement in soil erosion control and water
resources protection, the scientific tour was arranged on August 30. This tour
including two sites visiting.
The field
tour
The first one is a
different types of soil erosion (sheet, rill, ephemeral gully etc.) observation
in the cultivated lands in this part of the Central Russia. Erosion processes
are observed during spring snow-melting in the end of March – beginning of April
and after heavy rain-storms during warm part of year (May – September). Results
of long-term monitoring of soil erosion, quantitative assessment of the soil
erosion rates and consequences of the cultivated land reduction have been
discussed during the field excursion.
The second one is
the Moscow water supply system. A canal constructed almost 80 years ago for
Moskva-Volga has now became the biggest artificial waterway in Russia, linking
Moscow to the Volga River at Ivankovo, north of Moscow. Participants have
learned a lot about the water supply system and the protection for the water
sources locations.
As an extra
welfare, a training course Water-related natural hazards: measurement and
modeling has been provided during this forum. It included 7-session lectures,
seminars, as well as workshops. The topics are mainly about the following
aspects:
1.How can we
measure erosion at plot scale, field scale and small watershed scale, what are
the challenges for these different scales of measurement and which types of
equipment exist
2.Ecomag:
catchment scale streamflow assessment for world’s large rivers
3.Soils of the
world
4.Digital modeling
of erosion soil cover patterns
5.Quantitative
assessment of soil and gully erosion rates
6.Social
economical factors of soil and water conservation in the different landscape
zones
7.Bed load
measurements techniques in river monitoring
Participants for
this course has got the official internationally recognized diploma of Moscow
State University (1 ECTS point), which was issued in the closing ceremony of the
forum.
As one of the
important content, the WASWAC outstanding Youth Paper Award was released in the
closing ceremony. Total 10 paper were evaluated from submitted manuscripts to
receive this award. Each first author for the ten papers has received 1000 USD
honorarium and certificate. As the sponsor of this award, Beijing DATUM
Technology Development CO.,LTD has dispatched staffs to attend this forum. The
award issue ceremony was tightly following the introduction proposed by
DATUM.
The group photo
for some participants
The sponsors for
this forum include WASWAC and MSU. The Co-organizers include China Society of
Soil and Water Conservation (CSSWC), International Research and Training Center
on Erosion and Sedimentation (IRTCES), The International Commission on
Continental Erosion (ICCE), The International Association of Hydrological
Sciences (IAHS), V.V. Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute, and the UNESCO Chair at
the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences. Thanks for the everything
under their strong support!
(Source: WASWAC:
www.waswac.org/)
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