On Sept. 17, the third CRAES Master Lecture was held online. Professor John Cherry, Chair of CRAES International Scientific Advisory Committee (CRAES-ISAC), delivered the lecture titled “Ten Reasons Why Our Relationship with Groundwater is a Total Mess”.

Professor John Cherry, Foreign Member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is currently the Adjunct Professor at the University of Guelph, Canada. As the world-renowned groundwater scientist, he created the academic field of contaminant hydrogeology, with many awards and honors received from scientific and professional organizations in Canada, the United States and the UK. He was also awarded the 2016 Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize (Singapore) and the 2020 Stockholm Water Prize for global contributions to groundwater knowledge and technology. As CRAES-ISAC Chair, his leadership and support has not only contributed to the development of CRAES’ groundwater discipline, but also to CRAES’ development towards the world-leading environmental science institute.

In his lecture, Prof. Cherry emphasized the importance of groundwater, with 3 types of groundwater problems introduced, 10 technical and societal reasons analyzed illustrating why our relationship with groundwater is a mess. Finally, 8 possible measures to solve the groundwater problem were pointed out. During the Q&A session, Prof. Cherry discussed the relationship between climate change and groundwater, the use of concepts such as “assimilative capacity” and “transboundary” in groundwater research, and potential low-cost groundwater quality testing methods with the audience.

Based on the platform of CRAES-ISAC and CRAES’ international collaboration network, the CRAES Master Lecture series was launched in March 2021, where the world-renowned scientists and the brightest thinkers share the latest research findings and provocative perspectives, facing the academic frontier and hot issues of ecology and environment. Nearly 300 researchers and students from CRAES, other organizations affiliated to MEE, research institutes and universities listened to the third CRAES Master Lecture.