Lake Tai Project

The Lake Tai Water Pollution Treatment Project is an individual activity funded through the ACEDP. The objective of the Project is to increase awareness of IRBM approaches including institutional governance, science based management for pollution control, and technical measures for pollution and algal control in order to facilitate improved management and policy approaches in the Lake Tai Basin; and identify priority areas for further Technical Assistance which might be supported by Project financiers following this Project.
The project contains strong components centered on waste water treatment, non-point source pollution control, as well as point source control, early warning systems and catchment management and modeling.

Earth Systems is the lead firm responsible for overall Project management of the Lake Tai project encompassing: project mobilization and inception including establishment of Project management systems and procedures; coordination of inputs of specialists; liaison with Chinese and Australian government partner agencies and ACEDP; financial management and reporting; and quality assurance of all project outputs.

Dam Safety Study Tour

This project is a part of World Bank APL3 Institutional Strengthening and Training Component in China. Earth Systems has been engaged by Shanghai Qingcaosha to arrange for study tour, which will concentrate on reservoir dam safety and secure whole-process management.
Key tasks and services provided by Earth Systems as part of this project include:

• Contact with Dam and reservoir management agencies and authorities in Australia and New Zealand and establish their availability and interest in contributing to the Study Tour.
• Arrange the meeting and site visiting for the study tour
• The Senior Specialist & Interpreter will be with Qing Cao Sha group to translate, assist in communicating welfare matters but also to spend dedicated time to facilitate reflection and discussion around the content covered by the Facilitators.

An initial Kit will be provided to participants, will include PowerPoint presentations, content materials, selected articles, characteristics of site visit locations and activity details.

Lake Tai Project Extension

The Lake Tai Water Pollution Treatment Project has built a multilayered partnership platform to facilitate partnerships between Australian and Chinese Government agencies at national, provincial and municipal levels, for water quality and algal blooms control and management. During project activities, Non point source nutrient pollution (NPSNP) was identified as a major but still poorly understood source of pollution for Tai Lake.
The aim of the extension Project is to build on these initial activities and further contribute to informed and evidence based government policy and decision making through the application of the catchment and farm level decision support approaches in the Lake Tai Basin.
The extension has 3 main activities:

• Catchment scale DSS approaches.
• Farm scale DSS approaches.
• Pollution control policy and management applications.

Policy and management applications of the catchment and farm level DSS approaches will be integrated into each extension activity, highlighted in all project deliverables and confirmed during final activity meetings and during the project completion workshop.

Earth Systems, representing AUS Lake Tai Cluster, is the lead firm responsible for overall Project coordination and management of the Lake Tai extension project encompassing: project mobilization and inception including establishment of Project management systems and procedures; coordination of inputs of specialists; liaison with Chinese and Australian government partner agencies and ACEDP; financial management and reporting; and quality assurance of all project outputs.

West Lake Tai Review

The Changzhou City Ge Lake Water Environment Management and Treatment Plan was initially produced by the Wujin District Government. West Tai Lake is an essential water source for fisheries, agriculture, industry, recreation and urban development in the region. Thus, establishing sustainable management systems to improve the water quality of the lake is a high priority for the Government. The review of the original master plan was undertaken by the AUS Cluster group in collaboration with the key Government Bureaus that are responsible for management of the West Tai Lake system.
The scope of the AUS Cluster review was to undertake an external review of:

• The existing Changzhou City Ge Lake Water Environment Management and Treatment Plan (Master Plan) published in 2006;
• Identified technologies and recommend additional technologies suitable for West Tai Lake remediation objectives;
• Funding program and priorities;

The ongoing monitoring and assessment programs required to guide future implementation of the Master Plan.

Chenzhou Mine Project

As the upstream of the mother river (Xiangjiang River) in Hunan provine, chenzhou is now facing big problems with the mines sites. Hydrochina Zhongnan Engineering Corporation (HCZEC) commissioned Earth Systems to provide environmental consulting services for the Chenzhou Xintianling Mine Site Engineering Procurement and Construction Management Project (Xintianling Project).
The decommissioned Tailing Storage Facilities(TSFs) associated with the Xintianling tungsten mining area pose a potential hazard to water quality, human health and safety, and agricultural productivity in the regions surrounding and downstream of these facilities.

This project is to primary to provide preliminary asessement of geotechnical and geochemical risks and rehabilitation options of sixdecommisioned TSFs. Main activities were involved:

• Preliminary Geotechnical Stability Assessment
• Preliminary Geochemical Stability Assessment
• Identification of potential rehabilitation options.
• Identification of further data required to aid in the selection of appropriate site-specific rehabilitation options.
• Provision of recommendations for rehabilitation of the six TSFs.

Hydropower Technical Assistance

Sanchuan Energy Development Co. Ltd. (Sanchuan), a developer of small hydropower plants (HPPs) in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), has requested technical assistance (TA) from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for (i) establishing good corporate governance, and (ii) building capacity in environmental and social safeguards.

This project is to develop Sanchuan's institutional capacity to address environment and social safeguards aspects of small-scale hydropower project development and implementation. At the corporate level, an environmental and social unit (ESU) will be established to oversee the environmental and social aspects of hydropower projects developed by project-level companies. The environment and social staff members of these companies will prepare and implement safeguards in subprojects. Training workshops will be provided. Awareness of and sensitivity to environmental and social issues will be raised with staff. A monitoring and evaluation mechanism will be built into the capacity building program.
For corporate governance, the TA will also undertake a thorough examination and analysis of the existing corporate governance policies and practices of Sanchuan. It will also recommend ways for Sanchuan to become a well-run transparent company, consequently improving its performance and access to capital. The recommendations will be in the form of an action plan outlining steps and a timetable for implementation.