This award supports travel for six senior researchers and two graduate students to visit Nanchang, Jiangxi, China, between November 1-13, 2007 in order to initiate collaborations examining coupled human and ecological systems centered on the Poyang Lake basin. The PI offers three research questions and related objectives to drive the agenda-building activity. Disciplinary perspectives will be brought to bear on interdisciplinary subjects: hydrology, bio-ecology and land-use dynamics. U.S. participation is being organized the PI, Dr. Kathleen Bergen, School of Natural Resources & Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (UM). The counterpart organizers are Dr. ZHENG, Lin, Dean, School of Geography and Environment, Poyang Lake State Key Laboratory (PLKL) Jiangxi Normal University, and Dr. WEITAO, Ji, Deputy Director, Poyang Lake Natural Reserve both in Nanchang, China. The EU collaborator is Dr. Fred De Boer, Resource Ecology Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands. Two graduate students from two different U.S. institutions are involved in the planning visit, Qing, Tian, a female Ph.D. student at UM, and James Burnham, a Masters student at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
