A Workshop on Sino-Norwegian Cooperation on N2O Emission
from Nitrogen-saturated Sub-tropical Forest was held in Beijing 29-31 August.
The workshop was co-organized by the Norwegian University of Life Sciences
(UMB), the Research Centre for Eco-environmental Sciences (RCEES) of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Sino-Norwegian Centre for Interdisciplinary
Environmental Research. A total of 60 researches from China and Norway
participated in the workshop.
Ms. Kristin Iglum, Counselor for Development and Mr. Tor Skudal, Counselor for
Environment from the Royal Norwegian Embassy were present at the workshop and
made a presentation on Sino-Norwegian cooperation on environmental
research. Prof. Jan Mulder from UMB and Prof.
Zhang Xiaoshan from RCEES, as project coordinator from both countries, both
talked about their latest research findings during the workshop.
In the on-going research in the Tieshanping catchment
(Chongqing), researchers found that nitrogen-saturated forests, common in south
China, are hotspots for N2O production, potentially making them quantitatively
important regional sources for N2O emission. These and other studies make
important contributions to further refinement of Earth System Model and
feedbacks in the climate system. In new projects, more attention needs to be
given to regionalization: what are the dominant factors determining N2O emission
at the regional level and how to scale up for regional assessments of the
source strength of N2O.
The research project “Forest in South China: An Important
Sink for Reactive Nitrogen and a Regional Hotspot for N2O”, co-funded by the
Norwegian Research Council (RCN) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
under the CHINOR Program(Norwegian Program for Research Cooperation with
China), was also kicked off during the workshop. This project is the result of
the joint call initiated by RCN and CAS in 2010 under the CHINOR Program
(Norwegian Program for Research Cooperation with China. A total of 6 projects were selected out of 27
applications. These projects will tackle issues related to climate change and
pollution.
