MOST Basic Research Program (973) project: Decadal droughts and mechanisms over global drylands (2012CB956200), PI: MA Zhuguo, 2012-2016. This project is designed to investigate the patterns, mechanisms, and tele-connections of drought over global drylands, to examine the differential contributions of land and ocean processes to mega drought, and to assess the ecohydrological consequences and risks of climate change in arid and semi-arid regions.

CAS Climate Change Science Project: Centennial warming and controls (XDA05090000), PI: YAN Zhongwei, 2011-2015. This project brings together over 70 scientists from CAS, CMA, and several universities, and aims to enhance scientific understandings on general trends and heterogeneity of warming over East Asia in past 100 years, to detect the signals of urban expansion in meteorological records and possible regional climate forcing, and to project future changes in air temperature in next 20-30 years with improved regional models.

Drought is one of the natural disasters that have the longest duration and widest impacts, resulting in water and food insecurity, and degradation in environment. Improving the understanding and predictive capability of droughts, and facilitating adaptations through establishing climate service systems at regional to global scales, are among the grand challenges proposed by the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and are the core themes of the Regional Hydroclimate Projects (RHP) under the Global Energy and Water Exchanges Project (GEWEX).