建立中国水资源信息学学科体系的刍议

On Establishment of Hydroinformatics Subject in China

20世纪90年代初,欧洲出现新兴边缘学科水资源信息学,在短短10余年时间里得以迅速发展。我国近年来的水利信息化进程明显加快,数字水利、数字流域等发展迅速。目前,正在从传统水利向现代水利过渡,以水利信息化带动水利产业化,成为我国今后水利发展的主要方向。本文在介绍这一新兴学科基础上,建议尽快建立我国自己的水资源信息学学科体系,为水利信息化的不断深入以及可持续发展做好理论准备。

A new interdisplinary subject called as Hydroinformatics was emerged in Europe in the early 1990's.It was resulted from the merge of traditional water science and modern information technology. It has developed very fast in the ten years time and is now well accepted all over the world. China is now in the transition period from engineering-based traditional water resources to management-based modern water resources. The infor-mationalization process of water resources in China has been remarkably accelerated in recent years. Various new concepts, such as digital water resources and digital watershed, have been proposed and many sophisticated information systems have been built in China′s water sector. We are now working towards industrialization of the water sector driven by information technology, which requires the development of our own hydroinformatics subject. Theoretical and technical studies of hydroinformatics are still very weak in China. There are yet no any universities opening hydroinformatics course, no formal acdemic journal of hydroinformatics, and no any relevant acdemic societies. The paper introduces the concept of this new subject and reviews China′s recent development in this field. Finally the paper strongly suggests to establish our own hydroinformatics subject system including its education, research, application and consultancy as well as journal publication and acdemic society. By doing so it is aimed to promote the theoretical preparation for further and sustainable development of China′s information technology in water resources.