Workshop Sponsors

Compaq Computer Corporation

Environmental Systems Research Institute

Valmont

The White House Office of Science and Technology, under the US/China Forum on Environment and Development, and in cooperation with several other entities, presented a bilateral water resources management workshop in April 1999 in Tucson, Arizona. The purpose of the workshop was to compare approaches to water resources management issues, and participants identified and prioritized key areas where ongoing cooperation can inspire significant changes in water resource management.

The workshop theme emphasized water resource management at the scale of river systems and the interaction between water uses and potential conflicts that can result. The organizing format of the workshop featured side-by-side case studies of specific river basins or watersheds in the US and China. During plenary sessions, participants explored issues associated with those river systems, the demands on water use and techniques developed to manage such use. The rivers that were discussed are:

The plenary sessions featured discussion of water management resources emphasizing areas:

• agriculture/forestry
• domestic/industrial wastewater
• ecological processes
• floods/drought mitigation

We focused on the types of problems that have emerged as future problems. In addition, we discussed ongoing research to related water resources in the U.S. and China.

These discussions in the plenary session provided a discussion basis for smaller working groups on broader technical and policy approaches to these issues. There were four crosscutting themes for the workshop breakout sessions:

• agriculture/forestry
  
• ecological
  
• domestic/industrial wastewater
• floods/drought mitigation

• currently being applied (commercially available for example)
  
• under research and development
  
• considered a need that is not currently being addressed (an R&D gap)

Summaries from the small working groups were presented to the larger group. The US/China co-chairs for the working groups integrated recommendations into a strategy for decision-makers. The strategy provided a prioritized framework against which potential future projects can be proposed. This strategy is poised provide a tool for decision-makers and can also serve as a basis for a bilateral agreement between the US and China on water resource management programs and projects.