From Oct 28 to 30, the 18th US-China Carbon Consortium (USCCC) annual meeting and training was held online.

This year's annual conference aimed at the latest research progress in the global carbon-nitrogen-water cycle, such as ecosystem carbon flux monitoring, methane monitoring, karst carbon sinks, geological carbon neutralization technology, ecosystem evapotranspiration, water use efficiency, etc. The proposed measures to increase sinks provided new development ideas for China to improve energy utilization efficiency and carbon reduce emissions.

The annual meeting was sponsored by USCCC and the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP) of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), and undertaken by the China University of Geosciences (Wuhan).

Professor Changliang Shao from the Innovation Team of Grassland Ecology and Remote Sensing of our institute delivered an opening and closing speech as the Chinese chairman of the USCCC, and made a key note conference speech on "Advances on Flux Observation and Research on the Mongolian Plateau".

Dr. Shao introduced the large-scale agricultural and pastoral area carbon flux observation network platform (included in different grassland areas of meadow grassland, typical grassland and desert grassland) based on the Hulunbuir Grassland Ecosystem Field Scientific Observatory of the Institute of Resources and Planning, which is distributed in enclosures, grazing, mowing and reclamation areas and consists of 16 sets of flux observation towers on land of different use types, as well as the only 4 sets of towers in Mongolia. He also described a series of results published on the accounting and mechanism of carbon and energy budgets, sharing of the grassland ecosystem under the influence of climate change and human activities, cutting-edge research on carbon, water, energy, and other biogeochemical cycles.

More than 60 scholars from universities and research institutes at home and abroad participated in this year's annual conference. They were from the United States Department of Agriculture, Stanford University, Michigan State University, North Carolina State University, the University of Toronto of Canada, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization of Australia, the National Institute of Environmental Research of Japan, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Forestry, as well as Tsinghua University, Fudan University and Nanjing University, and so on.

The number of online participants exceeded 4,000, and four sub-sessions were set up at the same time, focusing on the observation and research of carbon-water-energy flux, climate change, and the carbon-nitrogen-water cycle process and regulation mechanism.

The meeting decided to share scientific research progress in real time to promote cooperation, and organized a special issue of Remote Sensing to show recent research results. The conference enhanced China's influence in the field of carbon budget research, further promoted domestic and international cooperation by taking flux as an opportunity, and helped China's 'double carbon' strategy implementation.

From Oct 28 to 30, the 18th US-China Carbon Consortium (USCCC) annual meeting and training meeting is held online. [Photo /IARRP]