Towards a Global Network of Great Rivers Partnership: How Biological Monitoring Helped Collaboration Between Yangtze and Mississippi Rivers

In 2005, The Nature Conservancy’s Great Rivers Partnership in cooperation with the Environmental Management Program (EMP) on the Upper Mississippi River, led a delegation of American scientists in a science exchange from the Upper Mississippi River to the Yangtze River.  The EMP’s Long Term Resources Monitoring Program (LTRMP) quickly emerged as a program the Chinese scientists could use as a model for the development of a modern ecological monitoring network on the Yangtze.  Scientists on both rivers saw tremendous potential for future collaborative research and information-sharing if the monitoring protocols could provide comparable information on both rivers.  Toward that goal, in-depth technical exchanges were conducted annually since 2008, supported by a $2 million grant from the Chinese central government, funds raised by the Great Rivers Partnership from multiple private and corporate donors, and funds from the EMP.  Through the exchanges, Chinese scientists have identified fish sampling gears used on the Mississippi for adoption on the Yangtze.  They tested the gear on the upper Yangtze in a pilot study in 2009 and made preparation for using the gear to collect government-required fish population data starting in 2011.  The Mississippi-Yangtze science exchange is a successful example of communication and collaboration between two iconic great rivers that may lead to broad international partnership for the protection and integrated management of the world’s great rivers.