The university recently signed an agreement with the Chinese Academy of Sciences to study the evolution of glaciers in Alpine, Antarctic and Himalayan regions.

Professor Valter Maggi said Tuesday that glaciers are fundamental water reserves.

"Glaciers in Europe are smaller but with a high population density, thus are over exploited," he said. "In China the situation is almost the opposite. Glaciers are very large and often located in isolated zones, although their waters serve the country."

Maggi said the two countries can address common problems by exchanging experiences.

Italy can learn from China to cope with increasing water scarcity resulting from a shrinking of glaciers in the past years, while Italy has stronger experience in the management of tourism in glaciers areas, he said.

Maggi said glaciers are the most formidable archives of climatic and environmental information on the entire globe.

"Deriving from snow precipitations, they are able to record the atmosphere's history and information necessary to understand the functioning of the climate machine and therefore help predict future changes," he said.

"Pollutants used in any parts of the world end up on glaciers," Maggi said. "The impact of mankind on glaciers and the impact of glaciers on mankind will be the multitasking objective of our joint research."

He said an Italian team of glaciologists was monitoring Alpine glaciers, and has made some perforations on Mount Rose in order to collect information that is easier to gather from smaller glaciers areas.

The next step would be to systematically collect pieces of ice from various glaciers and conserve them, Maggi said. Then, Maggi said, no information would be lost when the glaciers melt.

The new round of Sino-Italian collaboration will include student exchanges, joint research activities and participation in international projects that will provide fresh imput into glacier studies, the expert said.  (Xinhua)