|
WKU Group Working On China's This month, Chris Groves, director of the Hoffman Institute, will join Robert Finkelman of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and José Centeno of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in presenting a seminar "Natural Geologic Conditions, Environmental Challenges, and Human Health in Southwest China" at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. The group will address the China Environment Forum, a working group affiliated with the Wilson Center's Environmental Change Security Project, a research center concerned with study of the impacts of environmental and energy issues on U.S./international relations. David Keeling, Alan Glennon, Deana Groves and Shiu Yue Mak of the Hoffman Institute's China Program also will attend the meeting that will focus on the cooperative efforts of WKU, USGS and AFIP to develop a consortium of federal agencies and nongovernmental organizations to seek solutions to severe environmental problems that face millions of rural residents in southwestern China. The consortium will focus on prominent environmental and human health issues that stem from natural geologic and hydrologic conditions, including safe use of coal and development of karst water resources. "Coal that can have very high, naturally occurring arsenic concentrations is creating enormous health problems in rural areas of southwest China, and some of these might be avoidable with research into geologic and cultural conditions in the region," Finkelman said. Finkelman and Centeno returned in early December from a speaking tour on Medical Geology to Japan and several institutes in China. While in Washington, members of the consortium are scheduled to meet with federal officials in the Environmental Protection Agency's international and mercury programs. A related goal of the consortium is to further develop the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) training and research infrastructure in southwestern China, by developing a regional GIS training facility in Guilin, Guangxi Province. "Our goal for the GIS Center is to expand WKU's rapidly growing capabilities in GIS teaching and research to provide the training necessary to develop a state-of-the-art GIS laboratory in southwest China similar to ours here at WKU," Groves said. "This could create opportunities for Chinese graduate students to train in GIS at WKU, and for Western faculty, staff and students to travel to China to present workshops on technical GIS, karst water resource, and other environmental topics." The group also hopes to fund summer internships for WKU and other Kentucky university students at the USGS in Reston, Va., and at the AFIP, a major Defense Department medical research laboratory in Washington, D.C. For more information, contact Chris Groves at (270) 745-5974. More WKU news is available on the World Wide Web at www.wku.edu. If you'd like to receive WKU news via E-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.
|