China establishes first research institute for national parks

XINING - China has established a research institute for national parks in the city of Xining, the capital of Northwestern Qinghai province.

The institute, believed to be the country's first of the kind, will focus its research on issues including biodiversity conservation, bearing capacity of the ecological environment and sustainable use of biological resources, in addition to developing key disciplines such as conservation biology, resource biology and restorable ecology.

The institute aims to build a system for monitoring and assessing the ecologic environment and providing early warnings against potential ecological risks. It also plans to build a display platform powered by big data and cloud computing for scientific research and science popularization.

The institute, run by a board of directors and led by a director, was co-founded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Qinghai provincial government.

"The institute will provide scientific guidance and services for Sanjiangyuan national park, in a bid to realize the coordinated development of ecological protection and regional economy," said Zhao Xinquan, the academic director of the institute.

The national park in Sanjiangyuan, which literally means "the source of three rivers," was established to protect the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang (Mekong) rivers.