On February 28, 2024, the first lecture of ‘R&D Lectures’ from the School of Environment in the new semester was successfully held at the Academic Lecture Hall of Huaiyuan Building. Yan Denghua, a senior engineer at the  China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, was invited to give a lecture to the teachers and students of the school. The lecture, Nature Enriched and Attributes Coordinated Watershed Theories and Technologies, was hosted by Ma Fang, Dean of the school.

Yan started with three key phrases, ‘national water network’, ‘digital twins’ and ‘happiness of rivers and lakes’ and put forward a three-tiered watershed protection and governance model. Then, he furthered his lecture by analyzing the root causes of water resources, environment and ecology and explained the background of the concept of ‘Nature Enriched and Attributes Coordinated Watershed’ in detail. In addition, he introduced the technological framework, the key content of technologies and their application. He explained with examples the five-color infrastructure system in water cycle and environment governance and how the system is used.Finally, he offered his personal suggestions and expectations to students based on his academic experience. The lecture was comprehensive and profound yet given with vivid examples and a sense of humor, striking a strong chord among the audience.

The lecture was set as a concrete measure to boost the realization for the Three Year Action Plan for New Breakthroughs in Liaoning’s Comprehensive Revitalization and offered new insights for the students and teachers in the school to raise their R&D levels. By conducting high level academic exchanges, the students and teachers got the chance to broaden their academic horizon and the school received new ideas on high level talents cultivation.

Introduction to the lecturer

Yan Denghua was born in 1976 in Taihu County of Anhui Province. He is a PhD and a PhD superior, and a winner of the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Science and Technology Award and National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. Being a member of National Ten Thousand Plan of Leading Talents, he currently serves as secretary and deputy director of the Institute of Water Resources of China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research. He is also a member of the Expert Advisory Committee of the Follow-up Project of South-to-North Water Transfer Project, leader of Self-evaluation Expert Group of Modernization Project of Natural Disaster Prevention and |Control Technology and a member of the first Eco-environmental Expert Group of Emergency Response of Ministry of Ecology and Environment.