On July 26, 2019, Robert S. Chen, Director of Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University, and Senior Researcher Xiaoshi Xing, visited School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, to renew the cooperation agreement. They also delivered two speeches respectively entitled “Global Mapping of Human Settlements and Population: Research and Population: Applications in Support of Sustainable Development” and “Urbanization: Coordination between Population Growth and Built-up Land Development”.

Professor Robert Chen first presented the background, history and development of CIESIN, and then briefly introduced the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the selection of sustainable development indicators as well as the importance of data to indicators. Professor Chen also took POPGRID data as an example to describe the development, application and challenges of raster data related to population.

 Picture 1: Professor Robert Chen delivered the first speech

Professor Xing discussed the coordinated growth between population and construction land in the process of urbanization. First, taking Shanghai as an example, he introduced the rapid development of urbanization in China in the past 30 years and introduced the concepts of population urbanization and land urbanization. By comparing Hudson Yards in New York, USA, and Ordos, China, two extreme cases of serious inconsistency between population urbanization and land urbanization, he put forward that in the process of urbanization, the growth rates of the two sides should be coordinated. Then, Professor Xing took the Yangtze River Delta as a case study focus and proposed that healthy and sustainable urbanization should be accompanied with the coordinated growth of population and construction land.

 Picture 2: Professor Xing delivered the second speech

After the speeches, Dean Yu Jianxing, on behalf of the School of Public Affairs of Zhejiang University, and Professor Chen, on behalf of CIESIN, held a signing ceremony of cooperation renewal.

 Picture 3: The signing ceremony

The cooperation has been going on smoothly for five years. After the ceremony, the two sides discussed how to deepen cooperation in the future and both are looking forward to more ways of cooperation.

Picture 4: Both sides conducted a further discussion