The largest project under ACEDP – River Health and Environmental Flow in China (E-flow Project) launched on Sep 3rd in Beijing.
The 3.4 million 2-year intervention was announced by the Australian Prime Minister, the Hon Kevin Rudd MP, jointly with Senator the Hon Penny Wong, Minister for Climate Change and Water, at the occasion of their state visit to China in April 08. The Project involving 3 agencies of MWR and 1 from MEP will trial and adapt Australian approaches to river health and environmental flows assessments and comprises both field elements and significant capacity building and communications elements focused on the Yellow River, Pearl River and Da Liao River Basin. The Contractor for this project is the International Water Centre (IWC) in Brisbane, an initiative of the University of Queensland, the University of Western Australia, Griffith University, Monash University, Health Waterways and the International River Foundation.
More than 40 attendees from MWR, MEP, WWF, ADB, Research Institutes and Universities were present at the Workshop. The Australian Government is represented through membership in the Project Steering Committee - Ms Chris Schweizer, Assistant Secretary of the Aquatic Systems Health Branch of Water Reform Division from the Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage & the Arts (DEWHA) and Mr Greg Claydon, Executive Director of the Strategic Water Initiative of the Queensland Government Department of Environment & Resource Management (DERM), who unfortunately was not able to attend this first meeting.
The IWC team gave a presentation of Australian development on river health and environmental flows. The Chinese implementing agencies briefed delegates their priorities and urgent needs for support on river health and environmental flow indicators, capacity building and expected application on policy formulation.
The 1st project activity, an Australian Study tour for 15 Chinese delegates was scheduled for November 2009. The Inception Report is expected in 3 weeks.