Successful start of a cooperation project with Beijing Capital Normal University

In March, a two-year cooperation project (DAAD-funded) started. The focus is put on the mobilization and transfer of nutrients in soils and watersheds. The main research question will be to analyze the impact of rainfall patterns and land-use change on the water quality in the drinking water reservoir Miyun. The reservoir is an important source of drinking water for the Beijing metropolitan region, but has a serious water quality problem due to nutrient input from non-point sources in the watershed. The kick-off meeting was held in the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering of the Capital Normal University in Beijing, Dr. Dorit Julich and Prof. Karl-Heinz Feger discussed together with the working group of Prof. Xiaoyan Wang possibilities of joint field experiments in the Miyun reservoir catchment. Potential study sites were visited, first field works were planned and preparations made for a sampling this summer. Results will be discussed in a workshop at TU Dresden in autumn 2018 together the Chinese partners. In the next year, students and PhD’s from TU Dresden will attend field experiments at the study site in China. The overall objective of the new established cooperation is the submission of a jointly prepared research proposal to the German Research Foundation (DFG) and Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).