Comments by Dr. Chris Groves on July 8, 2005 at the National Conference of the ( U.S. ) National Speleological Society in Huntsville , Alabama , while awarding the Society's Honorary Membership Award to Professor Yuan Daoxian. This award is made to one individual each year for lifetime contributions to cave and karst science: I am familiar enough with karst science and its practitioners in China to say that that Professor Yuan is considered by many to be the nation's leading karst scientist. He holds the highest of scientific positions as an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for his work in hydrogeology, especially with regard to karst. In 1978 he co-founded the Institute of Karst Geology , within the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences , Ministry of Land and Resources, and served as its director until 1986. Since then he has developed and led the Karst Dynamics Laboratory (KDL) within the Karst Institute. Other than the extensive research and publication accomplishments that have flowed from the KDL, there have been several key, related outcomes that have significantly impacted karst science, based on the efforts of Professor Yuan: 1) Communication with scientists outside of China . Prior to the opening of increased access to China by foreign scientists in the mid 1970's, outside of China relatively little was known about the karst landscapes there, even though they are arguably the world's greatest. The south China karst region, for example, covers some 500,000 km 2 over eight provinces. Among the earliest communications after this access increased was due to Professor Yuan and his contacts with Marjorie Sweeting of Oxford University and her colleagues. This included the first western caving expedition, which took place in Crown Cave on the Li River near Guilin . Since then a considerable amount of the caving and karst science by westerners has radiated from Guilin and the Karst Institute. In 1991 Professor Yuan also published Karst of China , which was the first (and still one of only a few) textbooks about the subject to be published in English. Although a great deal of work had been done by Chinese hydrologists, very little until then had been published in English, and thus accessible to non-Chinese scientists. 2) Research with a goal to ameliorate karst water resource problems . Although Professor Yuan has an interest and extensive background in academic, or basic, questions of karst science, during his entire career he has been keenly aware of the difficulties that many Chinese face due to karst water supply and related problems. He has told me stories about his time in the Cultural Revolution beginning in 1966 where many academics were sent to the country's rural areas, many to work at farm labor tasks. Because of his training, Professor Yuan worked on water resource problems, and from these experiences he has since had a lifelong, very strong drive to help the living conditions of his less fortunate countrymen who suffer from water and karst-related environmental problems. Of the 80 million Chinese who live in the south China karst region, about 8 million live below the poverty level at Chinese standards. He and his colleagues have worked on many applied problems throughout south China . A project underway now for which Yuan's group is providing karst hydrology expertise, for example, involves the development of an underground and surface reservoir at Da Long Long ( Big Dragon Cave ) in western Hunan Province . If successful, this project will make water much more readily available during the winter dry season to tens of thousands of Miao minority nationality residents of the high plateau above the cave, some of whom walk more than two km each way during the dry season to carry every drop of water that they drink. In one village there the average income is about $60 per year¡ªin part because spending hours per day gathering water is time that doesn't generate income. 3) Training the next generation of China 's karst scientists . Several of the brightest rising stars of the Chinese karst community are young PhD's who have been trained at the Karst Dynamics Laboratory, including for example Liu Zaihua, Jiang Zhongcheng, and He Shiyi. These scientists are doing fine research and now in turn training their own students, and especially important to western scientists, are publishing their work in English language, peer-reviewed journals. 4) Development of international communication networks among karst scientists . As mentioned above, professor Yuan has conceived and directed three karst related United Nations scientific programs over the last 15 years, and now serves as a co-Project Leader of a fourth, approved in early 2005. These programs have established ties and helped foster communication among hundreds of karst scientists, many in countries that share both emerging economies and karst water resource problems. This has been through publications and many conferences in Europe, Asia, Australia and the US that have been sponsored by these programs. A measure of the extent of this communication and the regard with which Professor Yuan is held by the international karst community is illustrated by the fact that the proposal for the new IGCP project was introduced at two IGCP-sponsored meetings in September of 2004 (Vietnam and Australia), and by the time the proposal was submitted to UNESCO in mid-October, it had received written endorsements from karst scientists in 33 countries! Considering the extent of China's karst, the extent of the karst-related environmental problems in the country, and the links of communication that he has made with scientists outside of China, Yuan Daoxian is one a handful of individuals living today who have made the greatest impacts on karst science. It is my great pleasure to make this award. |
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