ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA. – Dr. Wen-Huei Chang, USACE Institute for Water Resources, visited the Xiangjiaba Dam in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as part of a team from the United States, featured in this video posted on the U.S. Department of State’s EcoPartnership website. Dr. Chang, IWR Senior Economist (second from the right), participated in the regional visits which included colleagues from The Nature Conservancy, US Embassy Beijing, US Consulate Chengdu, China Three Gorges Corporation, and the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research.
This trip was part of Dr. Chang’s detail assignment to the State Department at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, as an Embassy Science Fellow. During his stay there in 2015, he engaged with China’s water agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and universities to gain firsthand knowledge of China’s water policy and development issues. In the three month span, Dr. Chang got to visit the deep draft ports in Shanghai, Three Gorges Dam on Yangtze River, Xiangjiaba and Xiluodu Dams on Jinsha River (Yunnan), Dujiangyan (an irrigation system built in 256 BC) in Chengdu, the world’s largest hydro-dynamic lab in Tianjin, and China’s first hydraulic research institute in Nanjing. He also participated in the mil-mil (US Army & PLA) Disaster Management Exchange in Guangzhou and Haikou. In addition, Dr. Chang delivered lectures at various research institutes including Peking University, and was interviewed by several Chinese media outlets at the U.S. Embassy as part of the embassy’s Public Affairs program.
The U.S. Department of State and China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) established the EcoPartnerships program in 2008. The mission of the U.S. – China EcoPartnerships program is to elevate successful sub-national cooperation models to international prominence, and by doing so, to spur broad replication by their peers in the U.S. and China. Dr. Chang’s experience as an Embassy Science Fellow and his engagement with various levels of government officials and technical experts in China provided him with invaluable insights on the strategies, status and challenges associated with the PRC’s water management issues.
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Video at U.S. Department of State’s Eco Partnership website https://ecopartnerships.lbl.gov/
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