From December 12 to 14, 2025, the Advanced Symposium on Water Conservancy Discipline Development and Sustainable Water Resources Utilization in Arid Regions was successfully held in Lanzhou. Organized by the Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Lanzhou University, the symposium aimed to establish a high-level academic exchange platform in the field of water resources research in arid regions, deepen industry-academia-research collaboration, facilitate the development of the water conservancy discipline, and pool intellectual resources to serve the national ecological security strategy for western China and the high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin.

The symposium invited experts and scholars from top-tier domestic universities and research institutions, including Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Professor Zhang Baoqing from the Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Lanzhou University, representing the organizer, systematically presented the discipline's phased achievements and future development plans in areas such as faculty team building, research platform establishment, and talent cultivation system refinement. Focusing on core topics including key technological breakthroughs for sustainable water resources utilization in arid regions, distinctive disciplinary development strategies for water conservancy, and innovation in interdisciplinary talent cultivation models, participating experts engaged in in-depth discussions and offered targeted, actionable suggestions, putting forward a series of constructive recommendations.

The successful hosting of this advanced symposium has clarified new ideas and broadened new pathways for the distinctive and high-quality development of the discipline. Concurrently, the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary academic presentations and interactive discussions not only significantly broadened the academic horizons of faculty and students and stimulated enthusiasm for scientific research and innovation but also played a positive role in improving the discipline's talent cultivation system and enhancing the quality of talent development. The academic consensus reached and research outcomes generated during the symposium will provide important academic support and practical reference for research on sustainable water resources utilization in China's arid regions, the fortification of the western ecological security barrier, and the high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin.