Worker bee

Friends, family,

I know you've been hoping for at least one more blog post before the end of the year. Well, relax, your wishes have come true.

Recently, I have been working on a project with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI). Within RADI is a research group that develops estimates for crop production in China and other places around the world, answering the question how much wheat, maize, rice, and soybean will likely be grown this year. It does this by studying and analyzing data collected by satellites, for example to see the size of production areas or comparing this year's crop growth conditions (temperature or radiation from the sun) to those of last year, to predict how much will grow.

The group has been doing this work for many years, but recently decided to start publishing their regular bulletin in English (in addition to Chinese). I got involved to help them with that part.

When the final product was released on November 20, the Chinese CCTV channel featured the new report. You can watch the news segment here: CropWatch bulletin released - CCTV news. Skip forward to 1:20 to see the report I contributed to. Enjoy practicing your Chinese!

[If you like this, you might also be interested in an earlier blog post about my work (or rather: about my coffee drinking habits.)]

In het Nederlands: Het duurde even, maar hier toch weer wat nieuws uit het verre oosten. Ik ben druk geweest met werk, waaronder een opdracht voor de Chinese Wetenschapsacademie. Het rapport waaraan ik gewerkt had kwam op 20 november officieel uit en het Chinese CCTV besteedde er ook even aandacht aan. Het nieuwssegment laat wat zien over gewasproduktie (daar gaat het rapport namelijk over) en toont ook even de boekjes zelf in beide talen. Om het rapport te zien moet je even doorspoelen naar 1 minuut en 20 seconden. Veel plezier met het Chinees!

Saving the world - one edit at a time

 

In the busy run-up to the summer, I completely forgot to tell my trusted readers that the book I had been working on for so many months (as one of several editors) had been published.

In between fixing the run-on sentences and straightening out the jargon, I actually learned something about how China's cities might reduce their dependence on fossil fuel energy.

Interested?

Here's the one-page overview, taken directly from the World Bank's website. I couldn't have said it any better myself :-). (In fact, when I said it, it took 516 pages in English and 325 in Chinese, after the translation.)

---

Sustainable Low-Carbon City Development in China.

Cities contribute an estimated 70 percent of the energy-related greenhouse gases and are therefore crucial to meeting China’s carbon reduction targets. With China set to add an estimated 350 million residents to its cities over the next 20 years, the case for urgent action is strong.
 
There is a strong alignment between low-carbon and locally appropriate sustainable development strategies for cities. A low-carbon city is, above all, a sustainable, efficient, livable, and competitive city.

An estimated 40 percent of city emissions comes from power generation and industrial activities each, with the remaining 20 percent from transport, buildings, and waste.

• Cities will need to act on multiple fronts, from improving their land-use and spatial development to energy-efficient buildings and industries, from public transport system to efficient management of water, wastewater, and solid waste. Also climate change adaptation needs to be incorporated in the planning, investment decisions, and emergency-preparedness plans of cities.
• Actions affecting land-use and spatial development are among the most critical because carbon emissions are closely connected to the urban form. Spatial development has also very strong “locked-in” effects: once cities grow and define their urban form it is almost impossible to retrofit them because the built environment is largely irreversible and very costly to modify.
• Five key cross-cutting actions for low-carbon growth include: setting the right indicators to encourage low-carbon growth; complementing administrative measures with market-based approaches and tools; breaking the link between land use, finance and urban sprawl; encouraging more intersectoral and interjurisdictional cooperation; and balanceing mitigation and adaptation measures.
• Actions will need to focus on addressing specific sectoral challenges, particularly those related to energy, transport, and other municipal services including water and waste management services. There are lessons to be learned from the experience of Chinese cities and World Bank-supported programs.
• Implementing a comprehensive multisectoral policy agenda requires coordinated action from a range of stakeholders including different levels of government, civil society, and citizens.
• China has an opportunity to implement low-carbon strategies and approaches during the 12^th Five-Year Plan period and beyond. This will make its future cities more sustainable, more efficient, more competitive, and more livable.

From: Sustainable Low-Carbon City Development in China.



You can buy the book on Amazon, or just download it on your Kindle. It's only over 500 pages of blood, sweat, and tears (see photo). :-)

In het Nederlands: In mei dit jaar is het boek Sustainable Low-Carbon City Development in China gepubliceerd. Ik heb daar als editor aan meegewerkt. Zo blij was ik met de publikatie dat ik helemaal vergeten was dit heuglijke feit even te melden op mijn blog!

At work

Beijing, ni hao!

I am back in China's Northern Capital (Bei=north, Jing=capital). Back in the land of dumplings and chopsticks, the land of a billion people with black hair, and the land of middle-age guys who in summer pull their T-shirts up above their bellies. Yeah, I am back!.

I know it has been just a little bit quiet on the blogging front, but that was because I was very busy reconnecting with Dutch culture all summer. I sampled all the new drink yoghurt flavors, took Simon and Thomas to eat some kroketten, and tested if stores now finally are able to accept international credit cards (the answer is, no). And of course I had to watch "our Epke" win his gold medal.

But now I am back, and even back at work.

I haven't talked much about work in this blog, mostly to not put you to sleep immediately (did it work?). Since May, I've been visiting the Institute of Remote Sensing Application, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to work as an English editor. The work is excellent, and I am not just saying that because the Chinese government might be reading my blog every night.

I am sure you are all dying to know what this place looks like, so come with me:


This is the main entrance of the institute. It's located in the Beijing Science and Technology park, right next to the Beijing Olympic Park. (In 2008, Epke was also there -- at the Olympics I mean.)




The building next to it, on the left, is "my building." As an unofficial visitor I don't even have a card, but a friendly door man let's me in when I come.




Inside it's work, work, work. I edit like a maniac. I really do!

When the editing slows down, I cheer myself up with a Nescafe. (No coffee machines in sight.) I also drink enormous amounts of Chinese tea.

 

 

For hot water, we use this water boiler. If you've ever been in China you'll recognize them because they seem to be everywhere. Boiling hot water for your coffee, tea, or noodle soup.

 

 

 

And next to the water boiler is this handy contraption. OK, it's not the most tasteful picture, I know, but with everyone drinking tea, you need a tea-leaf-collector-bucket. And that is it's official name.




Roughly at 11:09am, I walk across the street to this cafetaria. If you know me from work before, you might be stunned to know I can eat lunch this early. Lunch time is from 11am to 1pm and I found out the hard way that going at 12:46pm for lunch does not get you the best food in the house.





This is the cafetaria inside.




On the way to the food.  The photo is blurred, but that is because it is a hectic place. You can pick from many different kinds of vegetables and other dishes, and combine them with a bowl of rice.



And this is my lunch. In fact, this is my favourite lunch here. It's some cold noodle with (what appears to be) a sesame dressing, cucumbers, and spicy speckles. The white rolls on the side are also excellent. Well, actually, the rolls are boring and tasteless, until....you dip them into the red spicy sauce. The doughyness soaks up the spice and the result is  absolutely delicious.

 

 

This is on the way back to my building. (The careful observer might notice this picture was taken on another day (pollution index 250) than the blue-sky image above (pollution index 19, acceptable even by European and U.S. standards).

 

Wasn't this a great tour? I know, you all want to be here. Stay tuned for more updates from your fine reporter on the ground. There might just be another one this year.

In het Nederlands: Na een superleuke (en drukke) vakantie in Nederland is het echte leven weer begonnen. In deze blogpost staan wat fotootjes van een nieuwe werkplek bij het Chinees instituut voor remote sensing application. Ik werk als een editor, wat betekent dat ik help met het schrijven (in het Engels) van hun wetenschappelijke artikelen. Het is leuk werk, en dat niet alleen vanwege de lekkere noedels in de bedrijfskantine.

 

 

 

 

 

Earthquake Readiness

Believe it or not, but in between all the fun trips and hikes, there's actual work going on here in China. The World Bank website recently posted a nice write-up of one of Paul's projects in Sichuan Province. The article is titled, China: Restoring and Improving Education in Earthquake-struck Areas, and gives a good overview of the need for some investments in this remote area. Here's an example paragraph:

"Damaging over 2,600 schools in the Longnan area, the earthquake four years ago set back an education infrastructure already in need of help. In the aftermath of the quake, a safety assessment rated more than 62% of Longnan’s school buildings as “in need of repair or worse”. The half million students and over 26,000 teachers had to make do with classes in prefab shelters or temporary camps."

For some pictures of Paul at work, check out these two earlier blogs posts about Three Years After the Wenchuan Earthquake and And What Do You Do Again?.

In het Nederlands: China: Restoring and Improving Education in Earthquake-struck Areas op de website van de Wereldbank is een kort artikel over een van Paul's projecten hier in China. Het vertelt over het gebied Longnan, in de provincie Sichuan, waar de Wenchuan aardbeving in mei 2008 bijzonder veel schade had aangericht. Inmiddels zijn veel scholen weer herbouwd--de gebouwen zijn mooier en beter dan ooit tevoren--en ook de leraren zijn beter voorbereid op een eventuele volgende aardbeving.

Three Years after the Wenchuan Earthquake

Today is exactly three years after the massive "Wenchuan" earthquake in Sichuan Province. An earthquake that destroyed homes and wrecked lives, but ironically also is part of the reason I now live in China. My blog post yesterday about Paul's work couldn't have been more timely.

Here is an article Paul and a colleague wrote for the China Daily, the national news paper here. It was published online today. (See below for an exclusive photo!)

The school of quake reconstruction
By Paul Procee and John Scales (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-05-12 07:59

A team from the World Bank's Wenchuan Earthquake Reconstruction Project, together with teachers, county officials and a sea of excited schoolchildren, had the honor of attending yet another opening of a school recently. The new school, financed by the World Bank, is in Hui county, Gansu province, and replaced an earthquake-damaged building.

Nothing about the day the earth shook, shattering lives and buildings three years ago, could be more different from today for the children. Today is a day of remembrance, the third anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake that destroyed large areas of Sichuan province and parts of Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. This is a moment to pause and reflect. But this is also a moment to remember the remarkable resilience of the people in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi and the achievements of earthquake reconstruction efforts.

The achievements in terms of recovery and reconstruction have been remarkable. About 90 percent of the planned reconstruction is complete, and the rest will be completed by September this year. About 1.8 million rural and urban homes have been built. In many towns, basic services such as water and sanitation have not only been restored, but also upgraded, improving the environment and quality of life.

Schools, such as the one in Hui county, and hospitals, built in compliance with the latest earthquake standards, have reopened and damaged enterprises resumed production. Most importantly, economic growth has resumed and life for many has returned to normal.

The Chinese government has made concerted efforts, guided by a comprehensive reconstruction master plan, to reconstruct damaged infrastructure and help rebuild the lives and livelihoods of the quake survivors. As part of the reconstruction efforts, the government launched an innovative and successful program of twinning economically developed provinces and municipalities with severely damaged counties.

This program required provinces not only to allocate 1 percent of their annual budget for three years for reconstruction activities, but also to undertake rebuilding responsibilities themselves. This process bypassed the intermediary bureaucracy and created a healthy competition which rewarded the donor provinces and municipalities that could rebuild fast and adeptly with official recognition.

But challenges remain. It is, therefore, important to ensure that the newly built and better-quality infrastructure will be maintained and operated properly so that they serve the people for years to come.

Bricks and mortar are not the end but part of the means to achieving the ultimate goals of public health, education, transport accessibility and safe drinking water. Additional financial resources and trained personnel will be needed to operate and maintain these facilities. And continued support from provincial and national governments will be needed to ensure the reconstruction efforts endure. Moreover, building partnerships with the private sector could help introduce better know-how, reduce costs and optimize operations.

People's livelihoods have been rebuilt along with the infrastructure. But dealing with the human, economic and physical losses that the disaster caused will take time. Many people and small businesses, especially farmers, had to borrow money to help rebuild what was lost in the quake.

As if a major earthquake was not enough, the disaster-hit areas have since been battered by storms and floods. As such, some people and businesses struggling with debt find themselves slipping even further down the economic ladder. There is room for developing innovative risk transfer mechanisms and insurance schemes to help individuals, private enterprises and the public sector to better cope with the consequences of natural disasters.

These market-based mechanisms can help share the burden, expedite transfer of funds, especially to individuals, and adequately allocate risks and the cost of rebuilding to individuals, the private sector and the government. They can also help divert investments from high-risk areas by applying higher premiums to floodplains, and quake- and landslide-prone areas.

The World Bank is a proud partner of the Chinese government in the post-disaster reconstruction efforts. We have witnessed great accomplishments in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The reconstruction approach taken after the Wenchuan quake has taught us a number of important lessons that we will share with other countries and projects.

First, it is very important to have strong and pro-active leadership at the national level to coordinate national and international support in disaster-hit areas. The government has provided that leadership and, in the process, implemented a wide variety of complementary and reinforcing policies to help direct investments and support recovery efforts.

It is important, too, to work closely with local governments and agencies, which are ultimately responsible for maintaining the investments and operating the facilities.

The memory of that day, as it should, will remain with us for a long time to come. But three years on we have cause to celebrate, to celebrate the rebirth of one school after another.

----
Paul Procee is the project manager of World Bank's Wenchuan Earthquake Reconstruction Project and a senior infrastructure specialist and disaster risk management coordinator for China. John Scales is China transport coordinator, World Bank Office, Beijing, and was the task team leader of Wenchuan Earthquake Reconstruction Project.

(China Daily 05/12/2011 page 9)

The photo on the right was not in the paper. But here it is, exclusively for the readers of my blog: a picture of Paul at the opening of the new school. The ladies in red, believe it or not, are all teachers at the school!

In het Nederlands: Vandaag staat er een artikeltje van Paul en een collega in de krant. Het gaat over de wederopbouw na de aardbeving in de provincie Sichuan, vandaag precies drie jaar geleden. De Wereldbank is betrokken bij de wederopbouw van scholen en andere infrastructuur in dit gebied. Op de foto zie je Paul bij de opening van een nieuwe school.

And What Do You Do Again?

Many of you ask (or presumably are wondering), what on earth does this guy, Paul, actually do for work.

I mean, you know he travels a lot, he has meetings, and big swats of emails arrive at his desk and blackberry every day. But exactly what does he do?

A short news article from last week or so relates to Paul’s current work, and I’ll share that below. But in reflecting on his (so far) relatively short (but distinguished) career, I realize that Paul in just a few years has really moved along the entire spectrum of ways to deal with climate change.

I’ll explain.

First, he studied (in between an active student life) air quality. Measuring air quality and predicting pollution levels and impacts was his first link to the issue of climate change.

After that, for a couple years, he worked on urban planning and transport—with the idea that if you can improve city planning, get people to walk or bike more or take a bus, and use cleaner and more fuel-efficient trucks, cars and buses, you can avoid a lot of air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions, the latter of which are a huge factor in climate change.

And now, more recently, Paul has moved on to what seems to be more the final stage (not of his career, but of dealing with climate change), which is to simply deal with the fact that climate change--and other disasters--are simply here. The consequences of our self-induced climate variability are already sweeping across the world in the form of more floods, more hurricanes, and more droughts and other weather related disasters than we have ever seen in history. To now try to limit the impact of these and other disasters, Paul, as they say, is into “disaster management.”

So his work is not all climate-related anymore, but the new common thread is trying to lower the impact of disasters (because come they will) by doing things like not building in flood-prone areas, building schools and hospital strong enough to withstand earthquakes, and helping cities and villages to have plans and systems and skilled people in place to respond quickly to a disaster and minimize the damage.

An area that Paul often travels to is Sichuan province and Gansu province in the heart of China, an area still recovering from a devastating earthquake in May 2008. (The picture above is from a recent visit to this area.) Other projects involve rehabilitating a river doing some other flood and wastewater treatment related projects in other parts of China.

Here is the news paper article:

Rising Sea Levels Trigger Disasters in China
The Xinhua state news agency reported on April 20 that rising sea levels caused by global warming over the past three decades have contributed to a growing number of disasters along China's coast. According to the State Oceanic Administration (SOA), sea levels have been rising on average 2.6 millimeters per year for the past 30 years, with coastal air temperatures rising 0.4 degrees Celsius, and sea temperatures rising 0.2 degrees Celsius. The SOA stated that the rising sea levels could lead to aggravated storm tides, coastal erosion, seawater invasion, and other disasters. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that China could be one of the biggest casualties of global warming in coming decades, with northern regions facing water shortages, decreased crop yields, and increasing sandstorms, whereas melting glaciers could increase flood risks in the south. The Chinese government plans to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels per unit of gross domestic product 17 percent in the next five years.

It’s not a pretty picture is it? To be in China at this time is both encouraging and depressing. It is clear to see that China is making efforts to lower emissions, but at the same time, the gap between the current situation and a sustainable lifestyle is so large, it is hard to image we can bridge it in a lifetime.

So while everyone (presumably) tries to lower emissions, some--like Paul--now focus on just preventing the worst disasters, trying to be ready with good systems, qualified people, and well-built homes, for the next time climate change induced disasters strike. When they does, you will see it on the news.

In het Nederlands: Paul’s werk heeft tegenwoordig te maken met de wederopbouw van een gebied in de Sichuan en Gansu provincies in het midden van China. Dit gebied is in mei 2008 door een zware aardbeving getroffen. Werkte hij vroeger veel aan klimaatverandering en het proberen te verlagen van de koolstofdioxide uitstoot in steden, tegenwoordig heeft zijn werk meer te maken met de wederopbouw na rampen (maar dan op zo'n manier, dat je toekomstige rampen vermijdt). Paul is niet de man die meteen na een aardbeving de eerste hulp verleendt, maar hij werkt juist met gemeentes en provincies om te zorgen dat ze goed voorbereid zijn op het feit dat er een aardbeving of andere ramp kan komen. Die rampen komen wel, maar je kan de ernst van zo’n gebeurtenis beperken door bijvoorbeeld ziekenhuizen en scholen zo te bouwen dat ze een aardbeving beter kunnen weerstaan, door te zorgen dat mensen niet bouwen in gebieden die snel onder water kunnen komen te staan, of door te zorgen dat je goed getrained personeel hebt dat bij een ramp snel hulp kan verlenen.