The opening ceremony for this forum was chaired by Prof. Liu Guobin, the director of the Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, CAS & MWR. Prof. Luo Jun, the Vice President of Northwest A&F University, attended the opening ceremony and expressed the warm welcome to all participants. He introduced the development direction, scientific research trends and the international cooperation and exchanges of Northwest A&F University in recent years, and wished a very successful high-level forum. Prof. Zhai Jinliang, the director of the Resource and Environment Division in the Bureau of Science and Technology for Development Chinese Academy of Sciences, delivered a welcome speech. He reviewed the researches focused on Loess Plateau by the Institute of Soil and Water Conservation of CAS&MWR in recent years, and looked forward to receive more fruitful achievements in soil and water conservation and ecological restoration in the future with the collaboration between different research institutes. Prof. Li Rui, the President of the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation, and Prof. Carmelo Dazzi, the President of the European Society for Soil Conservation, both provided a speech, and put forward the new requirements for global soil erosion research and soil and water conservation.

Speeches provided by Prof. Liu Guobin, Prof. Luo Jun, Prof. Zhai Jinliang, and Prof. Li Rui

Prof. Ning Duihu, the Secretary-general of WASWAC and Prof. José Luis Rubio, the Councilor of WASWAC were co-chaired the academic exchange. During the forum, experts from various countries fully demonstrated their latest scientific research achievements and exchanged the frontier scientific research ideas through 28 invited reports. The participants received comprehensive and systematic knowledges on soil erosion, so their international horizons were completely broadened. Especially in the afternoon of September 14, a special discussion was organized for the issues and challenges of soil erosion in current researches, as well as the needs and significance of soil erosion in global scale. This discussion summarized the achievements and analyzed the shortages of soil erosion research, which provided new perspective and new ideas for future global soil erosion research, and also put forward higher and further requirements for the young scholars. This discussion is persisted open for several weeks to all scholars for expecting the further supplement and improvement. All suggestions and comments will be taken into consideration carefully to finally draft the Program of Soil Erosion in the Future Studies, which will be shared with all relevant experts and scholars around the world.

Invited Reports

In order to fully take care of scholars from all over the world who are unable to attend the forum, a webcast present was also available simultaneously with the progress of this forum on site. During the live broadcast of the forum, scholars from amany countries, such as the United States, Europe, China, etc. have paid attentions to the academic reports online in the same time, the online number in the peak was up to 2,500 with active interactions.

Co-chaired by Prof. Ning Duihu and Prof. Jose Luis Rubio, and Invited Report from Prof. Fu Bojie

In the closing ceremony of this forum, the State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on Loess Plateau was certified as the Soil Erosion Research and Training Base of the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation. This Lab has carried out a lot of works in the readjustment of erosion environment on the Loess Plateau and in the improvement of agricultural productivity in the dryland. All these efforts have been effectively resolved the key technical problems of soil erosion and the drought disasters on the Loess Plateau. It provided important basic theoretical support for the process of migration and the biological basis of water-saving agriculture, and played an important role in soil and water conservation, ecological environment construction, sustainable agricultural development, and in the governance for the Yellow River.

After this Forum, some participants visited the relevant experimental facilities and bases around Yangling. Such visits were very helpful for the visitors to understand what research progress have been achieved by the Institute of Soil and Water Conservation of CAS&MWR, in soil and water conservation, ecological restoration, dryland agriculture and water saving.

Visiting the experimental facilities and research bases