On September 15th, the inauguration of the Lanzhou Office of the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (STEP) was held at Lanzhou University. Baizhan Shi, director of Science Technology Department of Gansu Province, Zhanting Yuan, secretary of Party Committee of Lanzhou University, academician Chunhua Yan, president of Lanzhou University, and Tandong Yao, academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the chief scientist of the STEP attended the conference.
President Yan said that the establishment of the Lanzhou Office provided an important platform for Lanzhou University to better participate in and serve the STEP. It is based on the strategies of the STEP to establish the Lanzhou Office with the layout of the full-service security function. There are several departments in the office including field survival training department for scientific research in high altitude area, center for achievement transformation evaluation, department for supplies transfer service to provide exhaustive services for the STEP.
Among the 10 missions composed of 68 topics on the STEP, Lanzhou University hosted one mission and undertook five topics. In the Pre-research Project in Qilian Mountain of the STEP, the scientific research teams led by Lanzhou University have investigated the diversities of ecosystem and biology, the changing characteristics of reservoirs and human activities of the Qilian Mountain in the past 50 years, accurately testing the effectiveness of ecological environment management, exploring the green development path of Qilian Mountain to provide scientific support for the ecological protection and restoration of the Qilian Mountain and the construction of Qilian Mountain National Park.
Baizhan Shi, director of the Science Technology Department of Gansu Province, put forward important requirements for the establishment of the Lanzhou Office for the STEP. Academician Tandong Yao, the chief scientist of the STEP, introduced the basics and achievements of the STEP, indicating that the STEP was aimed at national major demand and international science frontiers, focusing on water, ecology and human activities to reveal the processes and mechanisms of climate change over the past 50 years and their impacts on human society and predict the uncertainty of earth system behavior in this region. Moreover, it was also the important mission to assess strategic resource reserves, resource and environmental carrying capacity and disasters risk proposing an environmental protection strategy for the Asian water tower and the national ecological civilization construction. Subsequently, he put forward specific requirements for the next scientific expedition work to achieve breakthrough results and successful completion of the STEP.
Afterwards, the experts conducted relevant academic reports on the “Science Examination Academic Forum” and “the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Achievements Assessment”.
