Webinar title: Groundwater Management under Global Change: Challenges and Frontiers
Speaker: Chunmiao Zheng
Webinar time: February 28, 2025 (Friday) 8:30
Venue: Room 100, New Environmental Building
Inviter: Xinde Cao, Xiaoyun Xu
Abstract:
This report begins by reviewing the reporter's research journey, from undergraduate education in hydrogeology in China to studying abroad, and ultimately returning to work in China, highlighting the crucial role of interdisciplinary collaboration and an international perspective in advancing groundwater research. Subsequently, the report systematically elaborates on the significant role of groundwater in the global water cycle, ecological environment, food security, and economic development. It provides an in-depth analysis of the threats to the sustainable use of groundwater posed by over-extraction, pollution, seawater intrusion, and land subsidence, and illustrates the complex interactions between groundwater, surface water, oceans, and ecosystems through typical case studies from the North China Plain, Ningbo region, and Pearl River Basin. Finally, the report discusses the important value of integrated numerical models, remote sensing technology, and big data analysis in the precise assessment and management of groundwater quality, advocating for the integration of multiple disciplines to develop systematic and sustainable strategies for groundwater management and ecological environmental protection.
About the speaker:
Zheng Chunmiao, a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, a recipient of the Overseas Outstanding Young Scholar Fund from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, a Nationally Distinguished Expert, and a Consulting Expert in Environmental Earth Sciences for the Earth Sciences Department of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He currently serves as the Vice President and Chair Professor at Ningbo Oriental University of Technology (provisional name). Previously, he was the Founding Dean of the School of Environment at Southern University of Science and Technology and a member of the President's Office, a Chair Professor and the inaugural Director of the Center for Water Science Research at Peking University, and the Lindahl Endowed Chair Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Alabama, USA. He has achieved a series of innovative accomplishments in the fields of groundwater pollution mechanisms and remediation technologies, eco-hydrological-environmental processes in watersheds, and the impact of global changes and emerging contaminants on the sustainable use of groundwater resources. He developed the standard software for groundwater pollution simulation, MT3D and MT3DMS, which are widely used in over 100 countries globally. He has published 6 monographs and over 480 SCI papers in journals such as Science and Nature, and is listed among Clarivate's "Highly Cited Researchers". He currently serves as the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Sustainable Horizons and formerly as the Chair of the International Groundwater Committee of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences. He has received numerous honors, including the John Hem Award for Distinguished Service from the Groundwater Association of America (1998), the Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lectureship from the Geological Society of America (2009), the O.E. Meinzer Award (the highest honor in international hydrogeology) from the Geological Society of America (2013), the M. King Hubbert Award (the highest scientific award of the Groundwater Association of America) (2013), and the 11th Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (2024).