The 2017 Xiamen Winter Symposium on Industrial Ecology was held at the Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, on December 21-22
The Industrial & Urban Ecology Group, Institute of Urban Environment, CAS
The 2017 Xiamen Winter Symposium on Industrial Ecology and the first Chinese Graduate Students’ Forum on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources were held at the Institute of Urban Environment (IUE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), on Dec. 21-22, 2017. These two events occurred back-to-back and were jointly organized by the IUE, CAS and the School of Environment of Nanjing University.
The Xiamen Winter Symposium on Industrial Ecology is organized by the IUE’s Industrial and Urban Ecology Group that is lead by Dr. Wei-Qiang Chen. It first occurred on Dec. 2-3, 2016 (http://www.iue.cas.cn/xwzx/xshd/201612/t20161214_4720784.html) and is planned to take place annually during the wintertime in Xiamen, Fujian Province, China.
Four keynote speeches that are believed to provide new perspectives or applications of industrial ecology were invited for the symposium in the morning of Dec. 21, 2017.
- Professor Tom Graedel from Yale University first gave a speech entitled “Supply, Demand, Hosts, and Companions of Metals”. He introduced the progresses and challenges of metal circularity in eight aspects, including companionality, geopolitics, climate change, supply and demand over time, finding uses for a host metal, unanticipated events, substitutability, and today’s performance.
- Dr. Yan Lin from Norwegian National Institute for Water Research provided a report on marine litter and microplastics, which is an important emerging global environmental challenge.
- Dr. Min-Peng Chen from the Renmin University of China, who has been a member of the Chinese Negotiation Team for Climate Change, introduced the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and shared some interesting stories during the several negotiations she was involved.
- Dr. Chuan-Bin Zhou from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, CAS, shared his studies on the history, status, and future scenarios of biomass demand and utilization in human society.
The Chinese Graduate Students’ Forum on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources is initiated by several graduate students including Tian-Ming Chen from Peking University, Xue-Wei Liu and Xin Liu from Nanjing University, and Lin-Bin Tang and Min Dai from the IUE at CAS. The forum attracted more than 40 young scholars or graduate students working on industrial ecology or nature resources. They come from universities and research institutions in China and abroad, some of which are prestigious such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, Nanjing University, Beijing Normal University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Tongji University, Tianjin University, Wuhan University, Nanjing Normal University, Nagoya University, and the IUE at CAS. Sixteen participants were selected to present their studies at the forum. The topics of their presentations covered the core research fields in industrial ecology (e.g. life cycle analysis, material flow analysis, recycling of products, and eco-industrial park, etc.), and several others related to the sustainable use of natural resources. Prof. Graedel was invited to comment the students’ talks on Dec. 21, which was very encouraging for all participants.
The graduate students’ forum in 2017 was sponsored by the IUE at CAS, Nanjing University, and the HOSA Fitness Company. The organizing committee was chaired by Ms. Tian-Ming Chen. The forum is planned to take place every year and a new organizing committee will be elected soon to organize the forum in 2018.
About the Industrial and Urban Ecology Group at IUE, CAS
The Industrial and Urban Ecology group at IUE, CAS was established by Dr. Wei-Qiang Chen in 2015 and currently consists of five research staff members (including Dr. Chen), 2 research assistants, 3 doctoral students, and 3 master students. The group’s current studies are on 1) mapping the in-use stocks of products and bulk materials including cements and base metals in China from 1990 to 2015 with high spatial resolution, 2) building the global trade networks and Chinese national-level cycles of materials especially rare earth materials, and 3) characterizing the anthropogenic cycles and emissions of plastics and toxic metals (including arsenic, cadmium, and chromium) in China.
About the Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Institute of Urban Environment (IUE) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) was established in 2006. It is a comprehensive and interdisciplinary institution engaged in fundamental and applied research on the cutting edge of environmental and resource sciences in the urbanized era. The IUE is the only national research institute engaged in comprehensive studies on urban environment in the world.
About the Xiamen City in Fujian Province, China
Xiamen, also historically known as Amoy, is a major resort city in Fujian Province on the Taiwan Strait. This city is well known for its amiable climate, Hoklo influence and picturesque scenery. It is ranked as China's "most romantic leisure city".
Photo 1: The group photo of all participants attending the winter symposium
Photo 2: The overview of the conference room for the winter symposium
Photo 3: A photo when Tom was giving the lecture
Photo 4: The overview of the conference room for the graduate students’ forum
Photo 5: The full view of IUE, CAS
Photo 6: The city of Xiamen