Recently, the 8th IAHR International Groundwater Symposium was held at Hohai University. Academician of the University of Waterloo, Canadian Academy of Engineering, Academician of the Royal Society, Professor Edward Sudicky, Academician of the University of California, Los Angeles, Dennis P. Lettenmaier, Academician of Wuhan University, Professor Jun Xia, Professor Frank Schwartz of the Ohio State University and more than 200 well-known scholars at home and abroad attended the meeting. Hui Xu, President of Hohai University, attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech. Professor Zhongbo Yu, Director of the State Key Laboratory of Hydrology, Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, presided over the opening ceremony.
President Hui Xu extended welcome to the experts present the meeting and introduced the basic situation of Hohai University. He pointed out that climate change and high-intensity human activities have increased the spatial and temporal changes of regional and global water cycles, and water security faces new challenges and has become a hot issue for international academic and public attention. As a historic university of water conservancy in China, Hohai University is deeply aware that it is a heavy responsibility and a glorious mission to strengthen the national water security and promote the water science development. President Hui Xu said that Hohai University will aim at the development goals of building a world first-class research university and comprehensively enhance its comprehensive strength and international competitiveness. He also hoped that the experts will give more care, guidance and help to the university construction and development.
In the theme of “Global Change Challenges --- Water Security and Sustainability”, the symposium was divided into six main parts, including pollution, mining and protection of groundwater resources, urban hydrology, optimal water management and sponge cities, modeling and description of large-scale aquifer systems, hydrologic processes response to climate change, water resources sustainability studies under the influence of natural and human activities, high-precision new methods of surface water and groundwater monitoring. The participating experts conducted in-depth discussions on related topics, and more than 40 experts and scholars from the United States, Canada, South Korea, China and other countries made special reports, and introduced relevant research progress and research results.
