Around 70 scientists and scholars from China and Europe, mainly the United Kingdom, gathered in Beijing on Monday to exchange opinions on climate change and its impacts on global and regional water resources.

Entitled "Climate Change and the Role of the Water Cycle", the seminar is co-organized by the Research Councils UK (RCUK), the Monsoon Asia Integrated Regional Study (MAIRS), and the EU funded integrated project Water and Global Change (WATCH) with an aim to enhance collaborations between Chinese and European scientists on climate change and water cycles.

Chris Godwin, director of the RCUK office in China said: "China is the UK's fastest-growing partner in science research, but there's much room for increasing impact of works co-authored by Chinese and UK scientists."

Fu Congbin, chairman of the scientific guidance committee of MAIRS, the first project on climate change initiated by Chinese scientists, said at the seminar that his colleagues had identified key environmental changes that affect the people and societies in the monsoon Asia region.

"But, further research needs full international collaboration," he said.

During the three-day seminar, speakers from the UK Meteorological Office, the Center for Ecology and Hydrology of UK, Reading University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University and so on will cover topic areas such as "Present and Future Water and Land Use", "Climate and Hydrological Cycle", and "Regional Trends: Floods and Droughts".

(Xinhua News Agency November 25, 2008)