The Sino-German Workshop “EcoChange 2011” was held in Lijiang, Yunan Province during October 8 and 14, 2011.  

The theme of the workshop is "freshwater ecosystem responses to global change”. Four topics were featured in the workshop: 1. Indicators for freshwater ecosystem responses to global change; 2. Methods and tools for global change assessment; 3. Interdisciplinary modeling approaches; 4. Sustainable freshwater management strategies. About 30 members from the Sino-German project team attended the workshop. IHB Prof. CAI Qinghua and Associate Prof. TANG Tao respectively made presentations at the workshop.  

The Sino-German cooperation project “Assessment of Freshwater Ecosystems under Global Change” (EcoChange), also known as “ecological indicators for sustainable and integrated freshwater resources management”, was jointly undertaken by Prof. CAI Qinghua, principal investigator of the Research Group of System Ecology and Watershed Ecology at Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IHB) and Prof. Nicola Fohrer, head of the Hydrology and Water Resources Management Department in the Ecology Center of Christian-Albrechts-Universit？t zu Kiel. The project has been funded by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) since March, 2009, with a duration of 3 years.  

The Sino-German Workshop “EcoChange 2011” brings together international experts in the field of hydrobiology, meteorology, hydrology, etc. to exchange ideas and achievements in assessing the impacts of global change on freshwater ecosystems by identifying meaningful indicators, and scientific tools to support integrated decisions in sustainable freshwater management.