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The Second Working Meeting of Global-DEP Scientific Committee held in Xi’an, China

  • 28 October 2019  |  News

The Second Working Meeting of Global-DEP Scientific Committee was convened from 19 to 20 October 2019 in Xi’an City, China, with the support by UNEP-IEMP as part of the Secretariat of Global-DEP Scientific Committee. Called by Prof. Bojie Fu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dr. Mark Stafford Smith from Australia, this annual event of Global-DEP gathered nearly 50 participants from 15 research institutes and universities around the world, including 8 members of Global-DEP Scientific Committee. On the first day of the meeting, the committee reviewed a draft Global-DEP Science Plan jointly developed by its secretariat and four thematic work groups over the past year. Members and other participants made major comments on the conceptual framework and research priorities proposed in the science plan. On the second day, five regional work groups of Global-DEP introduced the background and existing work on drylands in Central Asia, the Mediterranean Region, Africa, America, and Australia, respectively. Afterwards, some guiding principle for organizing consultation workshops and case studies in these regions were discussed. During a break in the meeting, Prof. Bojie Fu and Dr. Mark Stafford Smith awarded two regional centres for Central Asia and Australia. As a key follow up of the meeting, the draft science plan will be revised by the work groups as soon as possible for international review at the first half of 2020.