Day 1

The Murray-Darling study tour is an important part of our overseas study program in Australia. The tour will last for about two weeks, where we will travel across the Murray-Darling River Basin. During the journey, we’ll hope to learn more about water resource management, sustainable water use and environmental protection.

Day 1 - Canberra – first impressions

We started from Brisbane and took a plane in the early morning and flew to Canberra—the capital city of Australia. The first impression of Canberra is that it is a small tidy and well planned city, there are no high-rise buildings, no crowed people, even no flourishing CBD, just a small peaceful city, but it is the political centre of Australia.

First stop - The National Water Commission (NWC)

According to arrangement, we visited the National Water Commission—the commonwealth water resources management organization, where we received a warm welcome. The director of the water resources management group gave us a presentation on water management in Australia, the current situation and main problems in water resources management. We introduced the background of the Yellow River and asked some questions about Australian water monitoring, water assessment, water allocation, and environmental flow control for river systems. As we all known, Australia is the driest resident continent in the world, and as such effective water resources management is essential. During the meeting, NWC identified the need to improve Australia’s management and understanding of its groundwater resources, further improve water pricing and deal with the over allocation of water resources.

In Australia, the management of water resources falls within the jurisdiction of the state governments. The individual states are therefore responsible for the development and implementation of water resource planning and assessment. The assessment, reporting and monitoring of water recourses across the country is undertaken and reported differently between states. One of the goals of the NWC is to standardize water resource assessment across states to one standard so key information can be used better between states. The National Water Commission’s role is to facilitate water reform on a national level under the National Water Initiative, which is an agreement between Commonwealth and state and territory governments, which provides a blueprint for improving the way Australia manages water resources.

Second stop - AusAid

After lunch, we went to the Aus-aid, who funded our fellowships (Australian Leadership Awards Program) for us to study in Australia. During the meeting, Mr. Peng made a presentation on our study at IWC, he gave a summary of the study program and our living and experiences in Brisbane. He talked about the English training, the professional development courses program, skills training, field trips, industry placement and the study tour. He made a report about the gains we have made during the past 6 months, and the experiences we have gained and learned from the field trips and work placements. Mr Peng noted that two members of the group entered the IWC course for master degree, as they had achieved the required English marks, and during the course they had got excellent success in the master group. Dr. Jin made a presentation on the IWC master course at the University of Queensland, the effort and achievements they made. The presentation inspired the officers and evoked warmly applause. We also expressed the appreciation to Aus-aid to provide the opportunities for us to study in Australia, we’ll cherish the oportunity and try our best to learn more knowledge and do more things for our mother river. On the topic of study, the officers gave us a satisfying affirmation and admiration about achievements we have got during the last 6 months. Then we talked about river management in China and how that differs from Australia. We talked about the uniqueness of the Yellow River basin and made a comparison about the problems the river system in China in comparison to that of Australia, and the difference in approaches to river management.

The officers were all interested in the Yellow River management experiences, they thought what our talked gave them opportunities to learn about river management in China. Through continued cooperation, we can learn from each other and improve the management of river systems in both countries.

By Peng Shaoming & Xiaohui Jiang

The National Water Commission: ww.nwc.gov.au
AusAid: http://www.ausaid.gov.au/