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Australia, China get together to save water

The mainland and Australian governments have established a bilateral research centre with bases in Beijing and Melbourne, focusing on better management of water resources in the two countries.

Following a meeting in Canberra last month between Science and Technology Minister Professor Xu Guanhua and Australia's new Education and Science Minister Julie Bishop, Professor Xu launched the Australian centre at the University of Melbourne.

Director of the Australian centre, Professor John Langford, said one of the centre's 'nodes' would be at Melbourne while the other was at the mainland's Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research.

The institute is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and is headed by leading professor on hydrology and water resources, Xia Jun.

The two organisations will engage in separate research but share outcomes and innovations.

At the launch of the Melbourne centre, the deputy director general of the Chinese academy, Professor Guo Huadong, said water was so scarce in China that its people had access to only 28 per cent of the world's average.

Professor Guo said water had become a key limiting factor for social and economic development. He said that under the government's current five-year plan, water had first place in the five strategic priorities.

'Co-operation between scientists from China and Australia will make a great contribution to the sustainable development of our two countries,' he said, adding that there were now 16 research institutes in the academy that were focusing on water research.

Professor Langford said the centre would foster research in priority areas of river basin and ground-water management, irrigation water efficiency, water allocation policy and the linking of climate and catchment models.

He said the situation along the Yellow River was similar to the challenges Australia has faced around the Murray-Darling basin - the largest river system in Australia. 'By comparing similar situations, we can harvest the learnings and confront these challenges,' he said.

Australia's largest research group, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), will work directly with research laboratories in the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.

Following an agreement signed in Canberra, the CSIRO and the mainland's national research centres will be able to seek joint funding for proposals from sources outside China and Australia.

Some A$24 million ($138.57 million) has been invested in joint research projects between CSIRO and 170 mainland organisations.

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