Dr Faith Ka Shun Chan recently received an interview from a (Portuguese-Chinese) weekly newspaper based in Macau named Plataforma Macau about the environmental challenges for “the Belt and Road” Initiative (BRI).
There has been arguments about BRI that it may endanger global biodiversity by various scholars, however Faith has emphasised that is an opportunity for China to take the leadership on improving the environmental management during the interview, and he is optimistic about it.
He stresses that China now fully understand and is aware that “the cost of restoring the polluted rivers are much higher than the origins at the beginning.” Faith pointed out to the Macau press that China now is committed to protect the river catchment and freshwater quality in the Green BRI statement that published by the State Council in 2017 April, stated the Chinese government will commit in other environmental issues and provide supports for major infrastructure construction projects along the route. The Green BRI aims to encourage green energy and improve the environmental protection standards at major areas such as atmosphere, soil and bio-diversity. These are positive aspects to improve the sustainability in nearly future.
Dr Faith Ka Shun Chan is an Assistant Professor from the School of Geographical Sciences, and the co-leader of the Belt and Road Initiative Research Priorities Area, Institute of Asia Pacific Studies (IAPS) at UNNC.
He conducts research on international water management practices, with a particularly focus on flood risk management in East Asian mega-deltas and coastal megacities. He has a strong research and teaching interests on inter-disciplinary aspects on environmental management across physical and human geography; in particular on issues related to sustainable water and soil management and development.
Currently, he is based in Ningbo at UNNC and leading two municipal projects on Sponge city pilot study at Ningbo and typhoon hazards in Zhejiang Province. His research project entitled “Investigation of micro-plastics in the Chinese urban river catchment: the case of Ningbo” has been funded by Research Fund for International Young Scientists NSFC. He is also involved in a couple of international joint research projects, as a co-investigator on the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) funded project – “The commercial property and flood risk” and in a research team of the EPSRC funded – “Blue-Green Cities” and “Resilient Cities” projects. He aims to work further on projects concerning flood risk management, water resources management and climate change adaptations in the Asia Pacific region.
He has got over 12 years University teaching experiences since he taught at School of Geography, University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.
I remembered when I came to the UNNC and started at work in 2012, the batch of students were very curious that whether I am able to speak Mandarin/Chinese at all, because of our professional ethics and attitude at the UNNC, we are very professional that we don’t speak other languages than English to them at teaching and off-teaching hours. However, in an occasion for their farewell dinner, as they were on their ways to Nottingham continue their 2+2 journey, then I have spoken a sentence, and they were quite shocked that I can actually speak Mandarin, which was very lovely indeed.
Published on 20 August 2018