The Workshop that  is a part of the Greater Tumen Initiative  project - “Feasibility Study on Tumen River Water Protection, which was endorsed at the 9th GTI Consultative Commission Meeting” was  held on 21 April 2011 in Beijing, China.. The overarching objective of the Study is to assess the water quality of the Tumen River and develop a set of practical recommendations for effective water protection and a river basin management system.  In addition, international experiences on river basin management were presented and discussed at the meeting in order to draw lessons for strengthening institutional cooperation mechanisms to improve the water quality of the Tumen River and shape a multilateral river basin management system.

The GTI Tumen Secretariat and the COWI Consulting jointly organized the Workshop with the support of UNDP. The Workshop brought together around 25 international water experts from renowned institutions such as the UNDP, EU-Commission, WWF- Amur Programme, DIPA, Australia-China Environment programme, International Economic Technical Cooperation & Exchange Centre, Ministry of Water Resource of China, and Yanbian Environmental Protection Academy. 

Eugene Simonov  from WWF- Amur Programme delivered presentation “Transboundary river management in Dauria Steppe and adaptation to climate change”.  Possible environmental impacts  resulting from Hailer River-Dalai Lake water transfer were described among other topics.  After  presentation  Hu Wenjun  from International Cooperation Center of the Ministry of Water Resources of PRC  questioned that planned water transfer volume 0f the water transfer canal exceeds 1 cubic kilometer and insisted that it does not exceed 0.35 cubic kilometers according to data quoted at the latest Sino-Russian negotiations.  Dr. Simonov explained that those figures come from the official Environmental Impact Assessment report  done in 2005 and are supported by a number of publications on official web-sites in the time when the project was assessed and construction started. Besides, according to preliminary calculations done by Russian hydrometeorologists,  even 1 cubic kilometer likely will not be enough to sustain the level of Dalai Lake during drought period. Then Dr.Simonov expressed hope that measures to mitigate  environmental impacts  resulting from Hailer River-Dalai Lake water transfer will be a subject of joint Sino-Russian study done by competent experts and  MWR representative agreed that this is quite necessary, probably even in the course of future activities supported by Greater Tumen Initiative.

RwB