胡部长致辞

胡部长与IAHR主席玉井信行教授和IAHR中国分会主任高季章教授合影

尊敬的各位来宾、各位代表，女士们、先生们：

    大家好！

在这秋高气爽的金秋九月，“第九届国际水信息学大会”在天津滨海新区举行。这一水领域的学术盛会首次在中国举办，在此，我谨代表中华人民共和国水利部，对“第九届国际水信息学大会”的举办表示热烈的祝贺！对各位与会代表的到来表示热烈的欢迎！

水资源是基础性的自然资源和战略性的经济资源，是生态环境的控制性要素。我国水资源可持续利用直接影响到国民经济、社会发展以及生态环境，已经成为我国迫切需要解决的战略性问题和重大瓶颈问题。随着我国社会经济的高速发展，江河流域水资源和水环境负荷日趋加重，人口-水资源-生态环境形势日趋紧张。目前，在水资源开发利用方面呈现出水资源供需矛盾突出，水资源利用效率低下，洪涝灾害依然严重，水环境不断恶化等问题。

面对复杂的水资源问题，1998年以来，水利部开始了现代水利或可持续发展水利的探索，治水思路和水利实践发生了深刻变化。十年来，已经取得明显成效，具体体现在构建长江防洪体系、缓解黄河断流、规划实施南水北调工程、修订实施新水法、建设节水型社会、维护河流健康、推进民生水利等工作上。新的可持续发展治水思路和水利发展框架已经初步确立，今后的主要任务是在新的时代背景下不断丰富、深化、完善和落实。

可持续发展水利，首先是理念和观念的突破，继之是制度和技术支撑下的实践，最根本的是坚持人与自然和谐相处。破解我国水资源问题，具体针对四大水问题，又对应有四个核心要点：一是要给洪水以出路，给河流以空间，科学调控洪水，合理利用洪水资源，从洪水控制转向洪水管理，以解决我国洪涝灾害严重的问题。二是建设节水型社会，着力于水资源管理的制度建设，强化水资源合理配置和需水管理，提高水资源的利用效率和效益，从根本上解决我国水资源短缺的问题。三是充分依靠大自然的自我修复能力，人工治理与生态修复相结合，生态、经济和社会效益统筹兼顾，加快水土保持建设，以解决水土流失等生态问题。四是发展绿色经济，严格排污管理，加强水资源保护，维护河流健康，以解决水污染问题。

那么，我们靠什么与自然和谐相处呢？自然现象如此复杂，加之人类影响的叠加，人水关系演进和治水的规律难以寻求，实现人水和谐绝非易事。水资源利用怎样才算适度？水资源利用方式怎样才算最好？水旱灾害怎样才能减少？没有先进的理念和必要的科技手段，是难以回答这些问题的。江河开发利用和流域治理保护需要科学技术的强大支撑，制度创新和科技进步，将为可持续发展水利提供科学的治水理念、坚实的理论基础、可行的实现策略和有效的关键技术。

水力学是一门具有悠久历史的学科，是水资源可持续利用的科学基础和技术手段，是在人水关系协调发展的演进过程中，伴随着水科学、水工程和水管理的进步而发展起来的。理论分析、实验手段和计算机的发展以及工程应用的需要，使水力学通过自身发展和与其他学科相互交叉，不断丰富自己的内涵，不断萌发新的活力。在科学计算和工程模拟的背景下，20世纪70年代出现了计算水力学。通过数十年的研究与发展，计算水力学在理论方程、数值方法、前后处理和工程应用等方面都获得了显著进展，能够模拟越来越复杂的涉水现象，数值模拟精度越来越高，模拟结果的可视化表达越来越逼真，重现和预测水系统相互作用和动态效应的能力越来越强。

随着信息技术和计算机技术的迅猛发展，计算水力学正在向新兴交叉学科—水信息学扩展。水信息学概念最早出现于20世界80年代初期，直到1989年才出现Hydroinformatics这个名称。1991年Abbott教授的专著《水信息学：信息技术和水生环境》的出版标志着水信息学的正式诞生。水信息学旨在应用现代信息技术、计算机技术、通信网络技术、可视化技术以及3S技术等高新技术，结合水科学、水工程、水管理中的科学方法和技术手段，研究和解决水资源、水灾害、水生态和水环境问题相关知识和信息的集成、处理、模拟、预测及可视化表达等问题，为水资源可持续利用、水旱灾害防治、水生态保护、水污染防治提供定量依据和科学支撑。水信息学不仅在水力学中取得了卓有成效的发展和应用，还扩展到水资源规划与调度、水利工程建设与运行、流域治理与生态保护、水量水质调控、水旱灾害防治等方面。因此，可以说水信息学为传统水力学发展开辟了一个新天地，有力地推动了复杂水问题解决思路、研究平台和技术手段的现代化转型。

20年来，水信息学在中国也得到了长足的发展。一是涉水模拟日益普及。河流泥沙输运模拟发展迅速，一、二维泥沙数学模型比较成熟，三维模型也有应用，主要用于解决工程和水库泥沙问题，正在向定量预测河流演变及水环境演化方向发展。针对我国洪涝灾害十分严重的问题，开展了从水文观测到洪水预报的规模研究，特别是复杂江河水系的洪水演进和预报模型研究，取得了富有特色的研究成果。结合我国大型水利水电工程中的特殊水力学问题，在泄洪冲刷和泄洪雾化等方面开发了具有自身特点的数值模拟技术。越来越多的数学模型、分析软件在南水北调工程、三峡工程、渤海湾水环境管理等大型水利工程建设和区域水管理工作中得到广泛应用。二是信息技术应用广泛。遥感技术已成功应用于灾害性天气预报和水旱灾害监测与预警，基于地理信息系统(GIS)技术的水利空间数据库的建设管理和业务应用广泛展开，全球定位系统(GPS)在江河水上水下地形测量及蓄滞洪区地形测量中得到规模化应用，视频会议系统在防汛抗旱远程会商和指挥调度过程中发挥了关键作用，可视化技术正逐步应用于流域和水利对象的动态跟踪、过程模拟与管理决策。

近年来水利实践表明，水信息学在洪涝干旱灾害减轻、地震涉水次生灾害防范、流域水量统一调度、河流生态应急调水、城乡供水安全保障、河湖生态保护等工作中，发挥了重要作用，有力推动了中国水利发展的现代化和信息化进程。

面对经济社会可持续发展对水资源可持续利用提出的新挑战和新要求，水信息学在中国面临新的发展机遇，在水资源管理、水灾害减轻、水生态保护、水环境改善方面具有广阔的发展空间。两年一届的国际水信息学大会是国际水信息学领域规模最大、学术影响最深的盛会，国内外来宾和专家学者共聚一堂，以“早期预警系统和减灾”和“实时控制与决策支持系统”为议题，交流分享经验和成果，探讨前沿学术问题，凝聚学科发展共识，协力推进水信息学在水资源、水生态、水环境等领域的广泛应用和深入发展。

21世纪，水问题、水科学、水工程和水管理仍将是水力学学科继续前进的重要推动力，水信息学无疑将成为水利学科发展的一个新的增长点，必将为水资源可持续利用和社会经济可持续发展作出新的更大的贡献。

最后，预祝本届“国际水信息学大会”取得圆满成功！

谢谢大家！

  The opening speech in the "9th International Conference on Hydroinformatics"

by Minister Hu Siyi

7^th September 2010

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:
Good morning!

In this golden September with clear autumn sky and crisp air, the "9th International Conference on Hydroinformatics" will be held in Tianjin Binhai New Area. It is for the first time that this academic conference is held in China. On behalf of the Ministry of Water Resources of People's Republic of China I am honored to extend my warm welcome to all of you.

As a basic natural resource and strategic economic resources, water plays a pivotal role in eco-environment. Sustainable water utilization directly affects national economy, social development and eco-environment, and has already become strategic and bottleneck problem which is of great urgency to be solved in China. With the rapid development of social economy, the load of water resource and environment in river basin is increasingly serious. The contradiction among population, water resource and eco-environment is becoming conspicuous. Nowadays, the key problems of water resource development and utilization are as follow: the difference between water supply and requirement is serious; water utilization is of low efficiency; flood disaster increasingly becomes more sever; and water environment increasingly deteriorates.

Confronted with such a complex water problem, the Ministry of Water Resources of People's Republic of China has begun, since 1998, to explore the applications of modern water conservancy and water sustainable development, and a significant change has happened to water management and project practice. For the past ten years, we have made remarkable achievement, such as the construction of the Yangtze River flood control system; relieve the drought-up of Yellow River; implementing the South-to-North Water Project; revising water law; establishing water-saving society; maintaining river health; promoting people`s livelihood conservancy, etc. The new framework of water management and sustainable development have preliminary been carried out, and next is to improve, widen and implement the prospects.

To achieve all the objectives, first is to break through traditional conception, and then to implement on basis of system and technology support. All of the thoughts and actions should be practiced on harmony between human and nature. For solving water issues in China, here are four important tasks: firstly, to clear spillway for flood regulation, make rational use of flood and change the idea from flood control to flood management; secondly, to establish water-saving society, improve water management system, strengthen water rational deployment and demand management, enhance water utilization efficiency; thirdly, to make the most of self-restoration capability of nature, integrate artificial and biological technologies, give consideration of benefit on ecology, economy and society, and speed up water and soil conservation pace; forth, to develop green economy, strict pollution management, enhance water conservation, and maintain river health.

So, what should we depend on to be harmonious with nature? The complexity of nature phenomena with the influences from man made it difficult to realize the discipline of interaction between people and water resource. How to properly utilize water? Which way is the best usage? How to reduce disastrous damage? These problems could not be answered without advanced theory and necessary techniques. River development and basin protection require powerful science supports, new system and technology are going to provide reasonable idea, solid theory basis, feasible practice strategy and key techniques for sustainable development.

Hydrodynamic is a subject with profound history, and also is the basis of science and technology of water sustainable utilization. It developed with the evolution of human and water resource, and the progress of hydro science, water project and management. With the aid of theoretical analysis, experimental technique, computer science and project requirement, hydrodynamic has constantly been enriched and developed through interaction with other subjects. Computational hydraulics appeared in 1970s against the background of science calculation and engineering simulation development. Computational hydraulics has made great progress in theoretical equation, numerical method, pre- and post-processing, and engineering application under research and development for several decades. Nowadays, complex phenomenon on water could be simulated with high precision, and the result could be visualized vividly. The ability of inversion and prediction for water system interaction and dynamic response become increasingly strong.

With the rapid development of information and computer technology, Computational hydraulics is trying to expand to a new interdiscipline -- hydroinformatics. The concept of hydroinformatics first appeared in 1980s, and the name of  “hydroinformatics” has not come until 1989. The treatise of 《hydroinformatics: information technology and the aquatic environment》 published by Professor Abbott in 1991 formalized the birth of the subject. The objective of hydroinformaticsis is to study and solve the problem of water resource, water disaster, water ecology and water environment, as well as integrating information, processing, simulating, predicting and visualizing all water related issues. It also combines the methods and technologies of hydro science, water project and management, making use of modern information technology, computer technology, communication and network, visualization technique and 3S technology, and the result is used to provide basis and support for water sustainable utilization, water disaster prevention, water ecology conservation, and water pollution control. Hydroinformatics affects every subject related to water and has distinct impact on all of them. Therefore, we could say that hydroinformatics breaks a new ground for hydraulics, opens the mind for solving complex water problems, and promotes the transformation of research platform and technology.

In the past two decades China has made great progress in hydroinformatic research and application. First, aquatic simulation became increasing popular. Simulation of river sediment transport develops at a high speed for solving the sediment problem of projects and reservoirs. 1-D and 2-D models have already matured, and we also make good progress in 3-D model. Research on flood observation and prediction, especially for complicated water system flood routing and prediction, have been developed according to the situation of our country and make good progress. In accordance with a particular problem in China, special numerical simulation technology has been developed in flood scouring and discharge automation. There are more mathematical models and analysis software that have been adopted in large-scale hydraulic projects, South-to-North Water Transfer and Three Gorges Dam, Bohai Bay environment management, etc. Second, remote sensing technology has been widely applied to severe weather forecasting as well as flood and drought monitoring. Based on Geographic Information System (GIS), the hydrodynamic spatial database has been significantly developed, and has been used in more management and business areas. The Global Positioning System (GPS) has been put into practice in the measurement of underwater topography of rivers, and in the large scale topographic in flood storage and detention basins. Video conference system plays a key role in long-range command and dispatch of flood control and drought relief. Visualization technique is gradually applied to dynamic tracking, simulate and management decision of river basin and conservancy object.

According to the practice of water conservancy in recent years, Hydroinformatics played an important role in reducing flood and drought disasters, prevention of secondary water disaster caused by earthquake, water regulation in river basin, emergent water diversion, water supply safety in urban and rural area, ecological conservation of river and lake, which have driven the development of hydrodynamic science greatly in China.

Hydroinformatics development is confronted with new challenges, according to the new requirements for coping with economic and social sustainable development, which will have great development on water management, water disaster relief, water ecological conservation, water environment improvement. Biennial Congress of the International Hydroinformatics is a grand meeting which has the largest scale in the field and the most influence on academia. Under the main topics--"Early warning systems and disaster mitigation" and "real-time control and decision support system", Chinese and foreign guests, experts and scholars sharing and exchanging the Hydroinformatics research and application of experience and achievements, discussing issues, reaching consensus, working together to promote the application of Hydroinformatics in water conservancy, environmental protection and other projects.

In 21st century, water issue, hydro science, water project and management will still be the major driving forces for development of hydrodynamic. Hydroinformatics will undoubtedly be a new engine for the development of hydrodynamic; this would contribute more to sustainable development of economic and water resource.

Finally, I wish the 9th International Conference on Hydroinformatics a great success.

Thank you!