|
|
Topic:Environmental Health
In the fall of 2006, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum began a partnership with the Hoffman Environmental Institute at Western Kentucky University (WKU) to carry out the China Environmental Health Project (CEHP), which is supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Regional Development Mission/Asia and CEHP partners. CEF is assisting WKU and Chinese scientists in exploring environmental health issues linked with karst water geography and coal emissions. In addition, CEF is launching a new section on its webpage devoted to exploring environmental health challenges in China in four main areas:
(1) Declining air quality;
(2) Water pollution and scarcity;
(3) Land use including waste, agriculture and food safety; and,
(4) Environmental health policies, research, and activism.
In these four areas CEF staff will compile news stories and generate short fact sheets and research briefs that focus on the environmental health impacts of China’s pollution and resource degradation both domestically and globally. The website will also include links to Chinese government, international assistance organizations, nongovernmental groups, and research centers conducting projects and research on environmental health issues in China. Articles in the China Environment Series issues 9 and upcoming issue 10 will center on these four areas of environmental health in China.
THE CHINA ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PROJECT:
A project led by Western Kentucky University's Hoffman Environmental Institute and supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development
Our Mission
The purpose of the China Environmental Health Project (CEHP) is to develop U.S.-Chinese partnerships to build the capacity of Chinese scientists, university students, local governments, civil society organizations, and citizens to understand and find solutions to two pressing environmental health threats: (1) coal emissions on the eastern coast and (2) degraded water in the karst regions of southwest China.
The Challenge
Millions of rural and urban citizens in China suffer from health problems and constraints to economic development due to air pollution from coal and contamination or shortages of water. In southwest China, water challenges are particularly acute due to that region’s karst geology, where much of the water flows underground through caves rather than at the surface. These health problems are yet another burden on tens of millions of subsistence farmers who live below China’s poverty threshold of $85 per year. Urban China is not immune to growing environmental health threats—on the highly urbanized east coast, emissions from coal-fired electric power plants have been a leading cause in growing respiratory illnesses and early deaths (400,000 annually).
The China Environmental Health Project
For 15 years, scientists at Western Kentucky University (WKU)—together with Chinese university counterparts and a number of U.S. government agencies and other organizations—have been undertaking applied research and training projects focused on enhancing Chinese infrastructure and technical capacity to find solutions to safe drinking water challenges in southwest China’s limestone karst regions and to monitor emissions from coal burning on the urbanized east coast.
In October 2006 WKU’s research efforts coalesced into the China Environmental Health Project (CEHP). With major support from the U.S. Agency for International Development and matching funds from partner organizations, WKU’s Hoffman Environmental Research Institute and Institute for Combustion Science and Environmental Technology will carry out CEHP in partnership with the China Environment Forum (CEF) at the Woodrow Wilson Center, the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), as well as with Chinese scientists from the School of Geography at Southwest University of China near Chongqing and the Anhui University of Science and Technology in Huainan. The main focus of this collaborative environmental health project is promoting university partnering to enhance technical infrastructure in air quality analysis, hydrogeology, and geographic information systems computer mapping technology. Besides the scientific component of the karst water and coal activities, there is also a strong community outreach and education component to CEHP.
Karst Water Component
The water component will utilize on-the-ground demonstration projects in karst regions of Chongqing and Yunnan to serve as a training vehicle for Chinese researchers while also providing direct benefit in water supply and quality to residents in the project areas. Dr. Chris Groves and Dr. Pat Kambesis are the lead WKU researchers for the karst work, working with Professor Yuan Daoxian from the School of Geography at Southwest University of China.
Coal Component
The coal component—led by WKU’s Dr. Wei-Ping Pan—will focus on increasing air quality monitoring capacity in the city of Huainan (Anhui Province) and on implementing related health impact studies in the city. Dr. Pan’s key partner is the vice-president of the Anhui University of Science and Technology, Dr. Mingxu Zhang.
Community Outreach and Information Dissemination Component
At each project site, CEF and IIRR will be training local NGOs and research institutes to help communities work with the U.S. and Chinese scientists. CEF and IIRR will also create seminars, publications, or other types of outreach for government officials, Chinese journalists, scientists, and interested citizens on the environmental health issues addressed by CEHP. Besides on-the-ground work, CEF is creating a new environmental health website for posting project CEHP papers and updates, as well as information, news, and research on other environmental health challenges in China. CEF will also focus most of its monthly meetings in Washington DC on issues of environmental health and public participation in the environmental sphere in China. The 2007 and 2008 issues of CEF’s flagship publication—the China Environment Series—will feature special reports on the CEHP’s activities, as well as papers and reports on broader environmental health trends, policy, and activism in China.
|
Events
Fishing Murky Waters: China's Aquaculture Challenges Upstream and Downstream
Wednesday, October 01 2008, 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
David Barboza, The New York Times; Teresa Ish, Environmental Defense Fund; WANG Hanling, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Event
Summary |
Yours, Mine, Ours—China’s Carbon Emissions in an Interdependent World
Thursday, July 17 2008, 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Jim Watson, Sussex Energy Group;
Trevor Houser, Rhodium Group, LLC
Event
Summary |
Coal City
Thursday, May 22 2008, 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Mingxu Zhang, Deputy Mayor, Huainan Municipal Government; Wei-Ping Pan, Western Kentucky University; Derek Vollmer, National Academy of Sciences
Event
Summary |
Local-to-Local Energy Linkages: California and Alberta in China
Tuesday, May 20 2008, 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Gary Mar, Embassy of Canada; Bo Shen, Natural Resources Defense Council; Dian M. Grueneich, California Public Utilities Commission
Event
Summary |
Cement and Climate Change in China
Friday, May 16 2008, 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Wang Lan China Building Materials Academy; Pankaj Bhatia GHG Protocol Initiative Project at World Resources Institute
Event
Summary |
|
|
|
|
China Environment Forum
Woodrow Wilson Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20004-3027
Email: cef@wilsoncenter.org
Tel: 202/691-4233
|
|
