National Engineering Geology Annual Meeting was held in Xining

 With the theme “The Major Engineering Geology Problems of the Reconstruction in the Earthquake Disaster Region”, National Engineering Geology Annual Meeting was successfully held on August 3^rd 2011 in Xining, Qinghai Province. Three huge geohazrads including 2008 Mw7.9 Wenchuan earthquake, 2010 Mw6.9 Yushuan earthquake and 2010.8.7. tremendous debirs flow not only brought about great social and economic impact, but also series of professional problems i.e. geohazards identification, mitigation, emergency measures and residence reconstruction. Xining locates at the north margin of Qinghai-Tibet plateau, and faces high risks of geohazards especially earthquake, landslide and debris flow. Therefore, it is great important to organize the conference in Xining.

The conference was a grand meeting in recent years and there were more than 170 papers contributed and more than 450 delegates attended. The local government also laid emphasis on the meeting and lots of formal media reported it. It should be stressed that the meeting, underlined the foundation role of geology theory in engineering geology, and appealed engineering geology seek root in geology to refresh theory of engineering geology. Geology subjects i.e. tectonics, petrology should be strengthened, not verse. China well-known scholar of tectonics, academician Guowei Zhang from Northwest University was specially invited to introduce the research progress about mainland structure and dynamics. Prof. Peizhen Zhang from IGCEA was also specially invited to introduce the geological structure patterns of activities structure and strong earthquakes.

Meanwhile, the meeting emphasized the importance of the young scientists, and set up special academic reports for young scientists. 17 talented young scientists were chosen and gave keynote lectures respectively, and Young scientists begun to play leading parts in the meeting, which is beneficial for the young scientists’ growth and the team construction of the engineering geology discipline.

In this meeting there were six parallel sessions with 74 specialists lectures, including prevention of geohazards in earthquake damaged areas, mechanism of geohazards in west mountainous areas and measures mitigation urban geological disasters, geohazrads in three gorges reservoir area, geohazards in the loess plateau, special soil engineering geology and engineering geology theory and technology.