Ecological environment is the foundation of human survival and development. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has carried out a series of fundamental, pioneering and long-term work, and made important strides in the construction of beautiful China. On June 6, People’s Daily published "Building a Clean and Beautiful World (Beautiful China)" and approached Wang Ding, a researcher at the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.Shen Chaoyong, Chief Engineer of the Third Surveying and Mapping Institute of Guizhou ProvinceLiang Zhengwei, a researcher at Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other scientific and technological workers listened to their exploration and efforts in "building a clean and beautiful world together". The full text is as follows:
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Editor’s Note: The theme of this year’s Sixth Five-Year Environment Day is "Building a Clean and Beautiful World Together".
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Ecological environment is the foundation of human survival and development. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has carried out a series of fundamental, pioneering and long-term work, and made important strides in the construction of beautiful China. Among them, we see more and more scientific and technological workers, and also explore more ways and possibilities of ecological civilization construction.
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Establish a natural ex-situ conservation area for the Yangtze finless porpoise, use remote sensing technology to monitor the management of mine geological environment, and plant rice and grass on saline-alkali land … This edition presents a special plan to approach the scientific and technological workers in the construction of beautiful China and listen to their exploration and efforts in "building a clean and beautiful world together".
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Wang Ding, researcher, Institute of Aquatic Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
"My whole academic career has been related to finless porpoises."
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Wang Ding, who has been exposed to the sun all the year round on the Yangtze River, has a stocky figure and dark skin. If it is not in an office full of books, it is difficult for people to associate him with the identity of a scientist.
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At the age of 64, he is a researcher at the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He and his team have been engaged in the protection and research of finless porpoises for more than 40 years. "It can be said that my whole academic career has been related to finless porpoises." Wang Ding said that seeing the increasing number of Yangtze finless porpoises, people’s awareness of the protection of finless porpoises has been significantly strengthened, and he thinks that his team’s research is a success.
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Wang Ding went to college in 1977, majoring in radio electronics in the Department of Space Physics. Upon graduation, the first research group in China to pay attention to the baiji aquatic animals was just established in the Institute of Hydrology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and needed technicians related to acoustics, which overlapped with Wang Ding’s major, so the research group sent him an invitation. "I used to study astrophysics. Since then, my research has moved from the sky to the water." Wang Ding smiled when he mentioned his choice.
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Wang Ding’s first research object is a baiji named Qiqi. Qiqi was mistakenly arrested by fishermen at the mouth of Dongting Lake. After being rescued, she has been living in Baiji Dolphin Museum of Institute of Aquatic Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
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Recording Qiqi all the year round, Wang Ding has been able to distinguish its various sounds. "The sound it makes represents different States, some are calling, some are mooing when it is leisurely, and some are squeaking when it is excited." Wang Ding said that Qi Qi was the only baiji living in an artificial environment in the world at that time. He expected to overcome the scientific blind spots such as the living habits of baiji and the meaning of making different sounds from it, and provide scientific basis for the protection of freshwater dolphins in the Yangtze River.
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On July 14th, 2002, Qiqi passed away because of her age and poor health. Wang Ding said that in order to find the baiji and preserve their species artificially as soon as possible, from November to December 2006, he led more than 60 experts and scholars at home and abroad to inspect the Yangtze River for 39 days, but found nothing.
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After the baiji dolphin was declared functionally extinct, the Yangtze finless porpoise became the only remaining freshwater dolphin in the Yangtze River. Wang Ding and his research team have been trying to protect the Yangtze finless porpoise ex situ since 1990.
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In 1990, in order to protect the baiji, the Institute of Aquatic Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other units pioneered the establishment of a natural ex-situ conservation area for finless porpoises in the old course of the Yangtze River in Swan Island, Shishou, Hubei Province. In 2013, in order to open up more ex-situ conservation areas, led by Wang Ding, the subject group of cetacean conservation biology of Institute of Aquatic Sciences of Chinese Academy of Sciences (formerly the first research group focusing on aquatic animals in China) and several units jointly visited the Yangtze River in Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan to find a suitable place to establish ex-situ conservation areas of Yangtze finless porpoise.
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At present, with the joint efforts of Wang Ding and other researchers, China has established eight Yangtze finless porpoise nature reserves in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. By April, 2021, the population of finless porpoise in the old course of the Yangtze River in Swan Island had increased from the initial 5 to 101.
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With the continuous promotion of the great protection of the Yangtze River, people see the Yangtze finless porpoise more and more frequently. Whenever he sees news about the Yangtze finless porpoise, Wang Ding pays special attention to it. Today, he is still active in the research and protection of Yangtze finless porpoise.
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Shen Chaoyong, Chief Engineer of the Third Surveying and Mapping Institute of Guizhou Province
"Let remote sensing technology better empower the ecological environment"
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Log in to the system, click the mouse, and the high-definition image of the mine will pop up immediately. By comparing the images before and after, the progress of mine restoration can be seen at a glance.
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How clear can the image be? "The resolution is better than 1 meter. In layman’s terms, there is no problem in distinguishing cars and trucks on the ground." Shen Chaoyong, chief engineer of the Third Surveying and Mapping Institute of Guizhou Province, introduced. Guizhou province is rich in mineral resources, with tens of thousands of mines. How to effectively realize dynamic supervision? At the beginning of 2019, Shen Chaoyong led the team to develop a monitoring platform with the help of "internet plus Remote Sensing" technology, so as to monitor the mine geological environment governance in the province in real time.
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At the beginning of 2020, Guizhou Province’s land space ecological restoration-mine geological environment management and restoration supervision platform was officially put into operation. Nowadays, the platform has gradually realized an omni-directional and three-dimensional dynamic supervision system for mine ecological restoration, which has been popularized and used in the whole province.
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Don’t look at the post-80s generation. Before leading 15 people to set up a platform R&D team, Shen Chaoyong has been deeply involved in the field of remote sensing for more than ten years.
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In fact, after a long period of development and precipitation, remote sensing technology has been relatively mature. "It is the most difficult to make technology serve the real needs." Taking effective supervision as an example, how to operate scientifically and reasonably? Shen Chaoyong repeatedly communicated with relevant departments to find out specific ideas, and then studied with the team item by item.
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"Using multi-source and multi-temporal remote sensing images, the surface changes in the target area are extracted, and the mine restoration and management situation is monitored through comparison before and after treatment, which is clear." Shen Chaoyong said.
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"Taking the mine as an example, the governance has many points, a wide range and a long duration. In the past, it relied on manual reconnaissance, or the viewing angle was limited, so it was impossible to spy on the whole picture, or it was time-consuming and laborious, and it was difficult to verify one by one." Shen Chaoyong introduced that in the long run, the size of the mine wound, the progress of treatment and the actual effect are easy to be confused. Nowadays, with the supervision platform, multi-level supervision can be realized, even at home, which greatly improves the supervision efficiency and effectively promotes the protection and restoration of mines.
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Sinan County, Tongren City, located in the northeast of Guizhou Province, is located in the center of Wujiang River Basin. Within 10 kilometers, there are 40 abandoned open-pit mines with a treatment area of nearly 80 hectares. In the past, whenever it rained, mud and water would cross around.
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"With the help of the supervision platform, on the basis of saving money, the local government will combine restoration and management with eliminating hidden dangers and restoring green reclamation, which will not only restore the ecology, but also revitalize land resources and achieve a win-win situation for ecological and economic benefits." In July 2010, Li Ting, who was born in Surveying and Mapping Engineering, entered the Third Surveying and Mapping Institute of Guizhou Province after graduation and became a member of Shen Chaoyong’s team, responsible for the operation and maintenance of the supervision platform.
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In order to provide unified, standard and shared mine information management services to the government and mining enterprises, Shen Chaoyong, together with the team members, established a spatio-temporal information database for monitoring mines, formed an operation mode of "one mine, one document, one report per cycle", and at the same time developed an ecological restoration project repository management system to ensure the full-process information management of mine ecological restoration.
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At present, Shen Chaoyong’s team is still studying how to apply remote sensing technology to the investigation of hidden dangers of geological disasters. Shen Chaoyong told reporters that using high-definition images to measure the surface of specific points can identify some hidden dangers and then resolve them in advance, which is very valuable. "If remote sensing technology is to better empower the ecological environment and push it to more fields and benefit more people, we must continue to try and innovate."
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Liang Zhengwei, researcher, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agricultural Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
"I hope that the saline-alkali land of this’ light board’ will turn green."
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There is a large area of severe soda saline-alkali land which is difficult to control in the west of Songnen Plain.
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"I hope that the saline-alkali land of this’ light board’ will turn green, turn into fertile land and turn into grassland." This is the goal of Liang Zhengwei, a researcher at Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Up to now, for 20 years, in order to make the saline-alkali land where nothing grows green, Liang Zhengwei has also taken root here.
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"White flowers in alkaline land are planted once a year, and there are not many seedlings, and they will not be harvested after autumn." Songnen Plain is one of the three concentrated distribution areas of soda saline-alkali land in the world, which is rich in reserve land resources. In 1984, 22-year-old Liang Zhengwei graduated from Jilin Agricultural University and stayed in school, leading students to study rice seedling raising in saline-alkali land in Horqin Right Front Banner, Inner Mongolia. At that time, Liang Zhengwei saw the difficulty of growing grain in saline-alkali land and decided the way to go in the future.
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"If rice can be planted well in saline-alkali land, farmers’ lives will be improved." Liang Zhengwei made up his mind secretly, and when he was in graduate school, he chose the scientific research direction of planting rice in saline-alkali land and screening salt-tolerant varieties of rice.
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In 2002, Liang Zhengwei came to work in the Northeast Institute of Geography and Agricultural Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and led the team to build the first alkaline land ecological station in China-Da ‘an Alkaline Land Ecological Experimental Station (Da ‘an Station).
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Da ‘an Station is located in Honggangzi Township, Da ‘an City, Jilin Province, with 1,500 mu of testing ground, which is a typical representative area of moderate and severe soda saline-alkali land. "Planting rice in soda saline-alkali land means treating alkali with rice, and vegetation restoration is referred to as treating alkali with grass." Liang Zhengwei said that in order to restore more saline-alkali land to the original natural ecology, he planted rice and sheep grass in saline-alkali land.
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"Salinization is the’ cancer’ of soil, and severe soda saline-alkali land is the most difficult to control at present. This may require generations of dedicated research. " Liang Zhengwei said that it is precisely because of the difficulty that planting grass and rice on saline-alkali land is more tolerant of loneliness.
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Year after year, keep exploring. Nowadays, the transformed alkali land has become fertile land, and the grassland that needs to be restored has reappeared green vitality. Liang Zhengwei led the scientific research team to break through the two key core technical problems of "controlling alkali with grass" and "controlling alkali with rice" in soda saline-alkali land, and provided two sets of systematic solutions for saline-alkali land management and efficient utilization. The related technologies won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award in 2010 and 2015 respectively.
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Now, Liang Zhengwei is leading the team to overcome the problem of direct sowing of Leymus chinensis seeds in severe saline-alkali land, and it is still a long way to go to screen salt-tolerant seeds for systematic propagation …
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"The topic is not thought of by patting your head, but comes out of the ground." Liang Zhengwei said. The working conditions in saline-alkali land are difficult, but Liang Zhengwei, as an academic leader, has always insisted on doing it himself. "Our farmers say that this saline-alkali land is’ one step and three soil changes’, which means that its landform and soil are very different." Liang Zhengwei often leads students to walk in saline-alkali land for one day, observing while talking, and walking hurts their legs and feet.
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Walking in circles, observing over and over again, tackling key problems one project at a time … For more than ten years, in saline-alkali land, Liang Zhengwei led the team to deepen the improvement and ecological construction of soda saline soil, and finally made one research bear fruit. In 2021, Daan Station was officially approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology and promoted to the National Field Science Observation and Research Station. Liang Zhengwei won the National May 1st Labor Medal and was named the national outstanding scientific and technological worker.
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