An unveiling ceremony to inaugurate the Joint Center for Urban Sustainability (JCUS) under the sponsorship of CAS and Arizona State University (ASU) was held on August 25 on the campus of the CAS Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources in Beijing.
Chaired by Vice Director of the CAS Bureau of International Cooperation CAO Jianhua, the ceremony was attended by CAS Vice President LI Jiayang and ZSU Vice President Michael Crow and 30 or so scholars and administrators from the two sides.
According to the agreement, JCUS will be made up of two research laboratories: the Urbanization Process and Sustainability laboratory and the Urban Ecosystem Studies Laboratory. Faculty and students in the two labs will conduct joint research on urbanization and regional planning, urban landscape ecology, urbanization process and its environment impact on water resource, air pollution, dust storm, and other pertinent urban sustainability issues. The research teams will also conduct comparative studies in US and Chinese cities. It will also sponsor joint workshops. The first one will be held in November 2006 in Tempe, Arizona. A reciprocal workshop will take place in May 2007 in Beijing.
