Perth Laboratory – Public Seminar Series 2009

Will China Run Out of Water?

Chunmiao Zheng
2009 Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer
Geological Society of America, Hydrogeology Division

*Monday 16 November at 3.30 pm, CSIRO Auditorium

RSVP required for this event

Abstract
The American agricultural expert and environmentalist Lester Brown published a provocative book in 1995 called “Who Will Feed China: Wake-Up Call for a Small Planet.” Today, however, of a greater concern may be the question of whether the unprecedented economic growth in China over the past two decades can be sustained as the environmental pollution and water shortage continue to worsen. Some people have asked, “Will China run out of water?” This question is not merely academic: China has to nourish a fifth of the global population with about seven percent of the planet’s water resources. In fact, China’s State Council, or Cabinet, warned in a drought-fighting directive issued in December 2007 that even after taking into full account water-saving measures, China’s water use will reach or approach the total volume of exploitable water resources by 2030. Ample evidence suggests that China faces a daunting water resource crisis. The country has been battling water shortages in its northern and western provinces for more than a decade. But burgeoning economic growth and widespread environmental pollution have aggravated the water storage problem. Is China really running out of water? What does all this mean? What can be done? This presentation will take a close look at the current water situation in China and discuss the options available to deal with the worsening water shortage problem. The presentation draws on the presenter’s recent research work in the North China Plain and the Ordos Basin in western China.

About the speaker
Zheng received the B.S. degree in geology from Chengdu University of Technology (China) in 1983, and the Ph.D. degree in hydrogeology with a minor in civil & environmental engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1988. From 1988 to 1993, he was a hydrogeologist at the environmental consulting firm S.S. Papadopulos & Associates, Inc. Since 1993, he has been a professor of hydrogeology in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Alabama. He is also a visiting professor and founding director of the Center for Water Research at Peking University (China). The primary areas of his research are contaminant transport, groundwater management, and hydrologic modeling. Zheng is developer of the widely used MT3D/MT3DMS series of contaminant transport models, and co-author of the textbook Applied Contaminant Transport Modeling, Second Edition. He is currently a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Hydrologic Science and president-elect of the International Commission on Groundwater of the IAHS.

Chunmiao Zheng is visiting Australia as the 2009 Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer which is sponsored by the Geological Society of America, Hydrogeology Division.

*This seminar is scheduled for a Monday instead of the usual Thursdays

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