By Stephanie Schupska
University of
Georgia
“Imagine taking the population of Georgia, doubling it and
adding a few more million people and throwing them all inside I-
285 in Atlanta,” said Mark Risse, a University of Georgia
Cooperative Extension engineer.
That’s Shanghai, a Chinese city that, even as it wrestles with
environmental, housing and traffic problems, has much to
offer Georgia.
“They feed their population with an agricultural system that
surrounds the city, and most of their diet is produced
locally,” said Risse, who is also an associate professor of
engineering with the UGA College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences.
“In many ways, their food production systems and diets are more
sustainable than ours,” he said. “We can learn from them to
develop more locally based, sustainable food production and
perhaps help them to minimize the environmental impacts of
these systems.”
That’s just one of the ways UGA and Georgia can learn from
Shanghai, Risse said. He’s part of a growing relationship
between the CAES and the Shanghai Academy of Environmental
Sciences.
The collaboration began five years ago with visits by UGA
faculty members and Shen Genxiang of the SAES, said Ed
Kanemasu, CAES director of global programs. “We’re looking at
furthering the collaboration between our college and their
academy.”
Shen and SAES president Cao Lulin recently discussed research
and teaching opportunities with various UGA faculty and staff
members. They were joined by Wu Chengjian of the Shanghai
Environmental Protection Bureau, which oversees the academy.
China expends 3 percent of its gross national product on
environmental issues. From help with wastewater treatments to
pollution cleanup, the SAES scientists are seeking ways to
partner with others to find solutions for problems facing both
China and the United States.
SAES and UGA may be able to collaborate, Shen said, in
ecological planning, applied ecology and ecotoxicology.
Specifically, they’d like to partner on:
• Agricultural and animal waste treatment and use.
• Agricultural nonpoint-source pollution modeling and
control.
• Wastewater biological treatment and solutions.
• Bioenergy production.
• Sustainable and environmentally friendly agricultural
technologies and systems.
Risse is dedicated to helping China and UGA find answers
together. He has taken three trips there to work with SAES on
animal waste, an issue he continues to work on in Georgia.
“We can help them, and I know good and well we can learn a lot
from them,” he said.
Shen foresees the collaboration between organizations in short-
term visits, researcher exchanges and cooperative projects.
“I think the international exchange is useful for our academy
to improve our research,” Cao said. “We should open our mind
wide and open the door to our side. We have a lot of common
interests. We have a lot of opportunities to develop technology
that would be useful for this kind of thing.”
“It’s a tremendous opportunity for both of us to learn from
each other,” Risse said.
Much of SAES’s research revolves around ecological and
atmospheric environments, energy sources and the organic
industry. Besides the United States, they’ve partnered with
Japan, Australia, Norway, Denmark, Great Britain and Germany.
Their largest current project (245 million euros) is a joint
venture with Italy on organic farming systems and technology.
One of Shanghai’s major problems is drinking water, which comes
primarily from surface water. In the past, they’ve focused on
cleaning up point-source contamination.
Now they have to deal with nonpoint-source contamination from
agricultural runoff, such as fertilizer and pesticides. In
Shanghai, “it’s a problem also of water consumption,” Cao
said. “The quality is not as good because we already have
pollution.”
Along with Risse and other UGA researchers, they’re working
toward a solution.
(Stephanie Schupska is a news editor with the University of
Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)
