in the Tarim River Basin

Urumqi, China

September  21 –  25, 2009

Sponsored by

U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)

National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC)

Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

Co-sponsored by

University of Idaho, U.S.A.

State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, CARERRI, CAS

Cold and Arid Regions Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CAREERI), CAS

Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, CAS

Bureau of Water Resources, Xinjiang Province, China

Xinjiang University

Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan

 First Announcement and Call for Abstracts

April 2009

http://www.sci.uidaho.edu/cae/index.html

http://english.casnw.ac.cn/

Background

The Tarim River Basin (TRB), located in China, north of the Tibetan plateau is the world’s largest and most densely populated arid-region, closed drainage, basins. Water resources in the TRB are declining rapidly as result of climatic changes and high water use in Xinjiang Province of northwestern China. The PI (Dr. V. Aizen) proposes to convene leading climatologists, hydrologists, and modelers from the United States, the People’s Republic of China, and neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan at a workshop in fall, 2009 in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Province, China.

Purpose of the Workshop:

The TRB workshop scientific discussions will synthesize and refine current state of knowledge in the following areas:

·         Dynamics and feedbacks of changes in low-atmosphere moisture transfer and surface water resources redistribution between natural stores of waters (seasonal snow cover, glaciers, permafrost, lakes, rivers and aquifers).

·         State-of-the-art methods of field research, remote sensing, and modeling and their application to assist in meeting the project’s scientific objectives.

·         Long-term meteorological and hydrological data accessibility and analysis for the study region.

·         Data control, data calibration, validation, and modeling.

·         Transboundary water problems (China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan) and integrated water management will contribute to discussions related to sustainable social and economical development in the TRB.

Workshop’s expected outcome: The workshop will conclude with a session to develop a mutual collaborative project to study and predict TRB’s water resources response and vulnerabilities to climate change and regional development. The interdisciplinary group of both senior and young scientists from diverse backgrounds in the physical and socio-economic sciences will define key scientific research questions, and will develop and coordinate a strategy for research in the Tarim River Basin. Comprehensive discussions and knowledge exchange between the groups and individual scientists at the TRB workshop will establish the foundation and framework of understanding to pursue future hydrologic research in this region of the world. This future research will search for answers to important hydrological questions concerning the spatio-temporal variability of water fluxes and water storage for sustainable water resources under changing climate scenarios in an environmentally fragile region where climate-change impacts on surface and ground waters are poorly understood. The TRB Workshop will focus on research involving alpine watersheds and dry land processes by assessing and predicting the dynamics and impacts of climate processes and regional development on world fresh water resources in a region of diverse and unique environmental significance.

The TRB international workshop will be held in Urumqi, Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China at the Institute of Ecology and Geography, CAS and the Bureau of Water Resources of Xinjiang. The local Organizing Committee is chaired by Prof. Qin Dahe. The Secretary General of the Committee is Dr. Liu Shiyin (liusy@lzb.ac.cn). Information about the TRB international workshop will be posted and regularly updated on the following University of Idaho website (http://www.sci.uidaho.edu/cae/index.html), the Lanzhou Cold and Arid Regions Environmental Engineering Research Institute (http://www.casnw.net/), and the NSF Beijing Office’s (http://www.nsf.gov/od/oise/beijing/nsf-beijing-ofc.jsp)  websites. English will be the official language of the workshop.

The TRB Workshop will be begin on September 21, 2009 with keynote lectures and continued that afternoon and the next day with research presentations focused on the TRB water resources and environmental problems. The September 21 and 22 keynote presentations will be accompanied with discussions and posters.  The third day (September 23) will be devoted to discussions in breakout groups. These groups will be tasked to identify future collaborative research opportunities and make recommendations to the research teams from U.S., China and Central Asian countries. On September 24 we plan one day field session on advanced methods of hydrological and meteorological monitoring (visit the Tien Shan Station, 60 km west from Urumqi city). September 25, will be devoted to Advanced GIS, remote sensing data processing and computation, and hydrological modeling session using TRB existing data. The workshop participants will also have the opportunity to participate in a 3-day after workshop field trip to the Aksu River basin organized by the Host Institutions after the workshop to see one of the typical Tarim River tributaries contributing snow and glacier runoff in the upper river reaches and large percolation zone in the middle and  low reaches, and intensive irrigation network in this river basin .

The Program Committee will determine key specialists in the area to present the problem oriented lectures and focused papers covering the state of the art and their recent results in according with the listed above topics. However, the oral presentation will be limited. The selected for presentation papers will be presented mainly at the poster session.  The power point presentations of the lectures, presented papers, and poster presentations will be published in the Workshop Proceedings or Elsevier Publisher special issue and posted at the University of Idaho (http://www.sci.uidaho.edu/cae/index.html)  and the CAREERI  (http://www.casnw.net/) web-sites.

Potential Workshop participants are kindly requested to submit the following information to the members of the Permanent Core of the Event Organizing Committee. 

ABSTRACT DEADLINE: May 25, 2009.  The University of Idaho web site for abstract submission will be open by May 5, 2009. Other related deadlines will be highlighted by May 15, 2009 in the second circular.

Scientific steering and editorial committee

Chairman: V. Aizen

Member: Qin Dahe, Cheng Guodong, Vijay Singh, Jeff Dozier, Hugo Loaiciga, Yao Tangdong,  Liu Changming, Xiahong Feng, Bolot Moldobekov, Mamadsho Ilolov

Organizing committee

Chairman: Qin Dahe

Deputy Chairman: Ding Yongjian

Members: Chen Xi, Wang Zhijie, Vladimir Aizen

Secretary General: Liu Shiyin

Permanent core of the Event Organizing Committee

In US: Dr. Vladimir Aizen, Dr. Arzhan Surazakov. Tel. +1 (208) 885-5888, Fax. +1 (208) 885-2855

E-mail: aizen@uidaho.edu  and arzhan@uidaho.edu

In China: Dr. Liu Shiyin and  Dr. Guo Wanqin. Tel. +86-931-4967375, Fax.  +86-931-4967345

E-mail: liusy@lzb.ac.cn  and  guowq@lzb.ac.cn

In China: Tel./fax   or Fax  

Questions about the Workshop organization and logistic information can be sent to Dr. Vladimir Aizen (aizen@uidaho.edu), Dr. Arzhan Surazakov (arzhan@uidaho.edu), Dr. Liu Shiyin (liusy@lzb.ac.cn), Dr. Shangguan Donghui (dhguan@lzb.ac.cn), or Guo Wanqin (guowq@lzb.ac.cn)