On January 17, 2018, Prof. QIN Boqiang from Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGLAS), together with Prof. Hans W. Paerl from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, won the Jiangsu International Science and Technology Cooperation Award of 2017. This is the first time NIGLAS has won this award.

Prof. Hans W. Paerl is a famous expert in marine and environmental science. His research includes microbially-mediated nutrient cycling and primary production dynamics of aquatic ecosystems, environmental controls of harmful algal blooms, and assessing the causes and consequences of man-made and climatic (storms, floods) nutrient enrichment and hydrologic alterations of inland, estuarine and coastal waters. His studies have identified the importance and ecological impacts of atmospheric nitrogen deposition as a new nitrogen source supporting estuarine and coastal eutrophication. He is involved in the development and application of microbial and biogeochemical indicators of aquatic ecosystem condition and change in response to human and climatic perturbations. In 2015, he was recognized as a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.

Since 2007, the joint research team led by Prof. QIN Boqiang and Prof. Hans W. Paerl has conducted a variety of productive research on the mechanism and control strategies of eutrophication and cyanobacterial bloom in the Taihu Lake for over 10 years. They have held various academic activities including seminars, joint projects, collaborative research papers, etc.

So far, they have collaboratively published more than 20 research papers on the Taihu Lake in many famous scientific journals, such as Limnology and Oceanography, Water Research and Environmental Science & Technology. These papers have been quoted by SCI for more than 1,200 times and three of them were selected ESI Highly Cited Papers.