Conversing on conserving rivers
November 25, 2011
By Kelly Chung Dawson (China Daily)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/2011-11/25/content_14162036.htm
Andy Bartels, a fish component specialist for Wisconsin DNR's Long Term
Resource Monitoring Program, holds a Golden Red Horse during a fish
sampling near LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Provided by the Nature Conservacy
NEW YORK - Large rivers are vital to agriculture, health and animal
life, so understanding them can be essential to a nation's progress. To
that end, an initiative called The Great Rivers Partnership (GRP)
connects scientists from China and the United States in an effort to
share information and learn best practices about how to manage a river's
health.
Launched in 2005 by The Nature Conservancy, a leading conservation
organization with projects around the world, GRP aims to support
sustainable management of the world's great rivers. Those rivers include
the US' Mississippi River, China's Yangtze River and Brazil's
Paraguay-Parana River. The organization's stated global priorities
include conservation of all the great rivers, with plans to expand its
work to other great rivers in the future.
As part of the initiative, scientists in the US and China have
cooperated on several observation trips to each country, supported by a
large grant from the construction firm Caterpillar Inc and funding from
the Chinese government.
"The partnership grew out of the realization that there are significant
dilemmas that people who manage rivers are facing at the same time,"
said Michael Reuter, director of the Great Rivers Partnership. "Those
dilemmas have to do with how we find balance in managing our large
rivers, between energy conservation and river conservation, and how we
address those issues collectively."
Yao Yin, an overseas Chinese scientist living and working in the US,
became involved with the partnership in 2005. He has worked to
facilitate exchanges between Chinese and US scientists from the American
side.
"Scientifically, we learn so much from each other because each river
system is so unique," Yao said in an interview with China Daily. "We
always gain perspective in looking outside our own box. Because
scientists often do things locally, and because our methodology is
different, if we initiate this conversation and build a global
partnership, we can share data and figure out the greater significance
of the data we've collected."
On exchange trips, scientists have studied monitoring equipment,
accompanied their hosts on observation trips, and have met people who
depend on the rivers, Reuter said. This might include flood control
communities, recreational organizations and fisheries communities.
"There's a lot of conversation about what questions are most important
to be asked and answered in monitoring and studying the rivers," he
said. "How do you ask the right questions so you're monitoring the right
aspects of the river. And how do you use good science to test hypotheses
and assumptions?"
The GRP identified the Yangtze River as a primary location of interest
early because of the significant challenges it faced, Reuter said.
Chinese work on hydropower dam technology was of particular interest, he
said. Initially working with the Yangtze Water Resources Commission and
then the Yangtze Fisheries Commission, the project developed from there,
he said.
"One of the things that immediately surfaced as an area of collaboration
between China and the Mississippi was a desire for the development of a
system to help predict and track changes in the quality of the health of
the fisheries community and river," Reuter said. "And the reason the
Mississippi was identified by the Chinese as a river of interest was the
Chinese need for better monitoring systems. They identified monitoring
as a key area that they wanted to work with us to develop. They were
very interested in work that had gone on with the Mississippi, and as a
result a series of exchanges took place where we shared information
about what had gone on in both countries."
The partnership has been mutually beneficial, Yao said.
"It's definitely beneficial to all parties," he said. "There's so much
to be gained, to be shared if we talk to each other about the things
we've each learned, both good and bad. If we try something similar, can
we have success? That's the motto that guided us on our GRP adventure."
Reuter pointed to certain areas in which the US and China could learn
from each other.
"Both sides have had a lot to learn from each other," he said. "There
are some aspects of US scientific methodology that have been more
formalized, but the depth of experience on Chinese rivers and the long
history with various management decisions on the Yangtze River have been
really enlightening to US scientists. One project we did on the
Mississippi in the late 1990s, that methodology was vastly improved when
it was done in China in 2006. We've been able to share things back and
forth and learn from each other, and each side has had pieces to
contribute."
One subject which the Chinese and US have shared information on is in
managing Asian carp populations, Reuter said.
"We learned a lot from the Chinese about carp, a very important species
on the Yangtze which was recently introduced in the US and has developed
an overpopulation problem here. There is research in China that we have
found very useful in the US: migration patterns of carp, and what the
species needs to function."
While universities and other government agencies have organized
information exchanges of this nature before, Reuter believes that the
difference with GRP is that the long-term goal is to create a larger
understanding of river systems globally.
"We're looking at these river systems as a whole. I think that's what's
really different and unique here is that we have an opportunity to look
at the entire global network over time, rather than through one-off
exchanges."
Other rivers that GRP is considering are Colombia's Magdalena River in
South America, the Zambezi River in Africa and China's Mekong River,
Reuter said.
Ultimately, Yao believes that the GRP is building trust, he said.
"There are barriers between cultures because each culture has its own
unique values, and these exchanges bridge these gaps so we understand
each other more and make progress in other areas," he said.
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