Seth Westra, a 2nd year PhD student in hydrology at the University of New South Wales, visited Wuhan University in the summer of 2004/05 to work with Professor Lihua Xiong on a project involving the examination of the nature of long-term variability in Chinese rainfall.
Wuhan University is located in Hubei province, and has a strong reputation for research in a diversity water-related fields, including research on the high-profile Three Gorges Dam project. The exchange was undertaken as part of the Australia-China Consortium for Water Research (ACCWR), which was established in 2004 to facilitate interaction and cooperation between Australia and China in areas related to research and training on water resources management.
Mr. Westra's research focused on the examination of low-frequency variability in Chinese rainfall for possible use in water resources management applications. Initial conclusions were reached on the nature of variability in Chinese rainfall, as well as some of the limitation in the data that were used. It is hoped that this will lead to stronger interactions between the two groups and improvements in our understanding of climate variability in the two countries.
Seth Westra presenting his research on Australian Rainfall variability at Wuhan University
