At the invitation of European Society of Soil Conservation (ESSC) and Joint Research Centre (JRC), Professor Li Rui, the President of WASWAC, and the delegation of Global Soil Erosion Assessment Project (GSEAP) from the Institute of Soil and Water Conservation (ISWC) visited Italy on 4-13 of June, 2018.

During this visit, they participated the International conference of ESSC, investigated soil erosion and conservation of north/central Italy, visited JRC and had a workshop on global soil erosion with JRC Soil Team.

To participate to the international conference on Soil and Water Security: Challenges for the next 30 years, to celebrate 30 years of activities of ESSC in Imola, Italy. President LI Rui made an address to congratulate on the ESSC 30th anniversary and the opening of the international conference on behalf of WASWAC.

To visit some sites of soil and water conservation in north and central regions of Italy, ranging coast area, mountain and hills areas. The exploitation and conservation of wetland and slope land have given a deep impression which is naturally and ecologically restoration and to make the impacts of human to the least.

A special workshop focused on Global soil erosion was successfully hold on 11-12, June in Ispra. There were 8 presentations from JRC and ISWC to introduced the research achievements and progresses covering soil erosion modeling, soil erosion survey and assessment, global and regional soil erosion factors calculating, soil carbon and soil biodiversity. JRC soil group has developed suitable models for Europe soil erosion investigation and mapping and made great contribution to the global soil erosion research. In JRC the nice database of soil and related environmental factors has been established. The research projects on soil erosion, soil carbon and soil biodiversity has made many enviable progresses. In ISWC, the project on Global Soil Erosion Assessment, which initiated by WASWAC, has been launched in 2017. The group has made some obvious progresses on soil erosion factor data collecting and extracting, method developing and improving, data gathering and analysis. Also a concomitant Pan-Third Pole project, which belongs to the Key project supported by CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences) covering 65 countries. The data from sampling and field investigation from this project will make a great contribution to the global soil erosion research. Both sides are very interested in the global soil erosion and very keen to do the cooperation on the very important topic. Based on the discussion, the preliminary work plan for the cooperation project has been proposed.

                                                                                                                                                                                                            Visit Joint Research Center

                                                                                                                            Group photo of WASWAC attended councilors (left: LI Rui, middle: Ildefonso Pla Sentis, right: Jose Luis Rubio)