Flinders’ Strategic Professor of Coastal Studies, Patrick Hesp, has been awarded a Visiting Scientist award by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The award will allow Professor Hesp to conduct joint research in China later this year.

CAS offers a package of international fellowships, collectively called the “CAS President’s International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI)”, to “support highly-qualified international scientists to work and study at CAS institutions”.

This enables strengthened Australia-China scientific collaboration: http://english.bic.cas.cn/AF/Fe/201408/t20140807_125680.html

 Professor Hesp will conduct experiments with Dr Wanyin Luo and colleagues from the Key Laboratory of Desert and Desertification, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, on flow and sediment transport in blowouts (hollows and depressions eroded by the wind) on the Tibetan plateau.

He has been working in China since 1986 on both desert and coastal dune systems funded by the Australian and China Academy of Sciences, and the China National Science Foundation.

He said that the Tibetan plateau region has some of the largest and deepest blowouts on the planet and while the blowouts are principally believed to be caused by desertification and over grazing, there has been minimal research conducted on their flow dynamics, rates of erosion, and relationships to agricultural practices.

As part of the CAS agreement, Dr Luo will also spend some time at Flinders in the future.