On 22-23 September, a GWP Toolbox Workshop was organised in Hohai University. 40 people attended the event, including professors and lecturers from Tsinghua University, Yangzhou University, North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Chang’an University, Dalian University of Technology, Zhejiang University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Changsha University of Science & Technology, Xi’an University of Technology and Wuhan University, as well as some domestic and international undergraduates of Hohai University.
Representing GWP were Senior Knowledge Management Officer Dr. Danka Thalmeinerova, Knowledge Management Officer Kenge James Gunya and Senior Network Officer Angela Klauschen, along with GWP China representatives Zheng Rugang, Coordinator, Wu Juan, Administration Officer and Ma Yilin, Communications Officer.
The participants were introduced to GWP China’s activities and Dr. Thalmeinerova presented the knowledge management in GWP and the evolution of the IWRM ToolBox. Presentations related to water education, including the IWRM concept, and application experiences in Chinese universities were delivered by the invited professors and lecturers.
In the free discussion after the presentations, the invited lecturers and professors said that the education and training on IWRM are not sufficient in China’s universities, although some universities have developed some related courses. They expressed a wish for more IWRM cases in the Chinese universities. This workshop was the beginning of a IWRM promotion effort in the universities’ water education.
Hohai University is the oldest and one of the largest universities in China for water education. It receives a lot of international students and lecturers and it cooperates with several world known universities from Africa, the United States and Europe. Over 95% of the graduates are successfully employed in China, mostly in the water construction industry.
IWRM Seminar in Changsha City
On 25 September an Integrated Water Resources Management Technical Seminar was organised by Changsha University of Science & Technology. It took place in the International Academic Exchange Center of the university in Changsha City, Hunan Province. It had over 40 participants, including professors, lecturers and postgraduate students.
Changsha University of Science & Technology is the biggest water and research university in the province, with over 35,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Most of the water research is directly applied and used by the provincial government officials for most of the water-engineering projects.
The seminar included welcome speeches by the Head of the university and GWP China, and Angela Klauschen and Danka Thalmeinerova gave presentations on GWP and GWP’s knowledge management respectively and Kenge James Gunya presented the ToolBox. Other presentations from Changsha University included research findings of soil water management in Madagascar and disaster risk management of flood spillovers. Issues of transboundary water management in China and its neighbours was also presented by Dr. Dong Fang. This very much focused on the principles of international water law. Dr. Dong was one of GWP scholars who attended the international water law module training at Dundee in 2011. Her research has focused on China’s relation with its neighbours on issues of transboundary water management.