The subject acceptance review meeting for 973 Program project “Rocky Desertification and Adaptive Ecosystem Regulation in Karst Mountain Region, Southwest China” was held in Guiyang on Oct.21 through Oct.24.
On behalf of the project group, Prof. LIU Congqiang, the chief scientist of the project, expressed his sincere gratitude for the review committee’s consistent attention and guidance and for the group member’s more than 4 years great efforts. He pointed out that the project was one of the 973 projects with the largest span of different disciplines. Despite the difficulties in organizing the research, the 8 subject groups have achieved notable progress and accomplished significant research results. He earnestly hope that the acceptance review of the subjects could lead members to consciously summarize the achievements, to explore the existing problems, to organize the research results, and eventually to make a good start for the final project’s summary and improvement.
After hearing the reports from the subject leaders, all the committee members agreed that all subjects of this project were difficult and unique as well as gaining remarkable achievements. The committee not only appraised the success of every subject group, but also made valuable comments and suggestion to each subject on how to get a step further on summing up. Afterwards, two discussion sessions were hosted by Prof. Liu Congqiang. One session was “Review of subjects and discussion of project”, the other was “Discussion of the outline for final project report”
The project “Rocky Desertification and Adaptive Ecosystem Regulation in Karst Mountain Region, Southwest China” consisted of the following 8 subjects: 1) Variation of the temporal and spatial configuration of rocky desertification and its driving force in the karst areas of Southwest China; 2) Bio-geochemical processes of carbonate rock weathering and pedogenetic rates; 3) Risk assessment for soil erosion process and water erosion and soil loss in the karst mountainous areas of Southwest China; 4) Dynamic processes of water circulation and their hydrological-ecological effects in karst areas; 5) Impact of bio-geochemical circulation of nutrients on rocky desertification; 6) Countermeasures toward karst bio-adaptibility and species optimizational collocation; 7) Maintaining mechanism of productivity of karst eco-systems and their adaptibility rehabilitation; and 8) Optimization and comprehensive adjustment and control of karst eco-system service functions.
Each of the above 8 subjects presented a report on the following aspects: completeness of the subject, quality and originality of the research, personnel training, cooperation and data-sharing, and fund management etc. The reports indicated that each subject group has accomplished its own established goals, and the main accomplishments include: innovative achievements in the topics of “The mechanism, process and rate of water/soil loss (desertification) in karst mountainous areas”, “The circulation and control mechanism of water-nutrient in karst eco-system” and “The adaptability and community collocation of plants in karst areas”, 7 published monographs, more than 500 academic papers (112 of which are SCI papers), and 8 patents. In addition, the subject groups received one provincial award and submitted one national advisory report endorsed by Vice Premier HUI Liangyu. Meanwhile, 4 postdoctoral researchers, 83 Doctors and 146 Masters were trained through the project.
It has been more than 4 years since the project “Rocky Desertification and Adaptive Ecosystem Regulation in Karst Mountain Region, Southwest China” was launched in year 2006. Ministry of Science and Technology will hold the project acceptance review meeting in late November.
(Provided by NAN Junya, Translated by XIAO Yi)
