On Establishment of Hydroinformatics Subject in China
Jingxuan Lu · Geo-information Science · 2004
A new interdisplinary subject called as Hydroinformatics was emerged in Europe in the early 1990's.It was resulted from the merge of traditional water science and modern information technology. It has developed very fast in the ten years time and is now well accepted all over the world. China is now in the transition period from engineering-based traditional water resources to management-based modern water resources. The infor-mationalization process of water resources in China has been remarkably accelerated in recent years. Various new concepts, such as digital water resources and digital watershed, have been proposed and many sophisticated information systems have been built in China′s water sector. We are now working towards industrialization of the water sector driven by information technology, which requires the development of our own hydroinformatics subject. Theoretical and technical studies of hydroinformatics are still very weak in China. There are yet no any universities opening hydroinformatics course, no formal acdemic journal of hydroinformatics, and no any relevant acdemic societies. The paper introduces the concept of this new subject and reviews China′s recent development in this field. Finally the paper strongly suggests to establish our own hydroinformatics subject system including its education, research, application and consultancy as well as journal publication and acdemic society. By doing so it is aimed to promote the theoretical preparation for further and sustainable development of China′s information technology in water resources.