May 5, 2014

Growing engineering alliance between UOW and Shanghai

An ongoing Engineering based research alliance between UOW and Shanghai was recently advanced with a visiting delegation from Shanghai.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) Professor Eeva Leinonen greeted delegates from the Shanghai Municipal Government Environmental Management Agency which is also referred to as the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau.

They visited UOW for a half day workshop/meeting to continue development of collaborative arrangements with academic and research staff specifically from the School of Civil Mining and Environmental Engineering and its Environmental Engineering Group.

Professor Leinonen said the University was delighted to be able to support the continued development of working relationships between environmental management agencies of Shanghai and the academic resources of UOW.

The meeting was a follow up to a successful 2013 workshop between UOW's Environmental Engineering Group, the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau and the Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences.

Visiting delegates from the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) included the Director General of the Shanghai EPB, Quan Zhang; the Division Chief of the R&D Division of the EPB, Chunlin Yang; the Division Chief of the Pollution Prevention and Treatment Division of the EPB, Juping Ren; the Deputy Director of the Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences, Xinliang Zhang; the Director of the Shanghai Environmental Supervision Institute, Chen He; and the Director of the Shanghai Solid Waste Management Center, Ping Zha.

Shanghai has been categorised by the United Nations as one of six cities in the world with a severe water shortage.

But thanks to a coastal reservoir - (a freshwater reservoir inside seawater), now 70 per cent of Shanghai's water comes from its Qingcaosha Reservoir.

Associate Professor Shuqing Yang from UOW's School of Civil, Mining and Environmental Engineering, is a world pioneer who helps advocate the technology of coastal reservoirs.

Coastal reservoirs are basically freshwater reservoirs located in the sea at the mouth of a river with a sustainable annual river flow. Coastal reservoirs have an impermeable barrier between the fresh river water and the salty sea water.

Professor Yang said currently this technology has attracted a wider professional audience and marked by a phenomenal success around China and Singapore.

As a solution to Shanghai's water crisis, from 2005 Professor Yang has developed a substantial framework using the coastal reservoir technology.

Chunlin Yang gave a presentation to the latest workshop on the main challenges facing Shanghai's environmental protection and master plan.

Jerry Ongerth, a Professorial Fellow in UOW's School of Civil Mining and Environmental Engineering, presented on UOW's research for Shanghai's water resources development and water quality improvement.

The visitors were taken on a site visit to the Innovation Campus in North Wollongong.