| The Wei River, the largest tributary of the Yellow River, suffers from complex water problems such as soil erosion and high sediment concentration, severe water shortage, frequent floods and water pollution. Climate changes are expected to deteriorate the situation even further due to altering precipitation patterns, and an increase in the intensity of extreme events. So far, ways to improve conditions in the Wei River watershed have been mainly focused on designing and implementing technical solutions at certain spots on an ad-hoc basis without following an integrated watershed management approach and without involving watershed stakeholders in this process. Recently, The Chinese government acknowledge in the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2011) that sustainable solutions for watershed use and management can only be achieved by intensive collaboration between responsible governmental institutions, scientists, and relevant stakeholders. This proposal is exactly based upon these principles and intends to address the pressing hydrological and environmental problems within the Wei River watershed in an integrated and participatory way. Main aim of the proposed project is to develop a science-based integrated watershed management plan for the Wei River aiming at sustainable use and governance of natural resources that reduce the communities? vulnerability to the effects of climate change and related natural disasters. Five main activities are foreseen for this purpose, i) creation of a vibrant multi-stakeholder network in the Wei River watershed, ii) monitoring and modelling of land use and hydrological conditions using advanced technologies, iii) execution of a participatory planning methodology to select and evaluate promising prevention and remediation strategies for protecting and restoring hydrological and environmental conditons within the Wei River watershed, iv) preparation of an integrated watershed management plan in close collaboration with members of the multi-stakeholder network, and v) dissemination of project results to targeted scientific and governmental audiences, nationally and internationally. |
