Energy-saving and environmental conversation are two critical challenges facing all human beings. China is the largest agricultural country by producing food for 18% of the world’s population with 9% of the global arable land. However, the waste of resources and environmental degradation have critically constrained China’s agricultural and rural development. In the new millennium, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences had made some significant breakthroughs in research and education. We have broken new ground in our basic research and technological development on the utilization of agricultural wastes as value-added fertilizers, the management of soil mircoflora crop residue-derived biochars for enhancing soil fertility and sustainable production. Through close industry-university research cooperation, we have positioned ourselves as the leader of China’s organic fertilizer industry and advanced the related basic research as evidenced by a series of influential publications and patents.

Taking advantage of modern environmental microbial technologies. The college has conducted a cutting-edge research to develop advanced technologies for waste water treatment and reuse, ensuring the compliance with wastewater discharge standards and enhancing resource utilization of sludge. Utilizing molecular genetic tools, the College has taken giant steps in breeding novel crop varieties that can effectively utilize essential nutrients and minimize heavy metal accumulation. In this way, we explore the novel techniques in order to decrease the nutrient demand, optimize fertilizer application and ensure the safety of agriculture products. Our college is among the first to investigate carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions in agroecosystems. We have established a world-level field research platform, T-FACE for simultaneously stimulating atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and air temperature. Results from this project have been contributing to mitigation of agriculture greenhouse gas emissions to help China to fulfill the obligation to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The vision of our college is to enhance our leadership role in research, education and outreach in the areas of resource management and environmental protection. By effectively utilizing our strengths in ecology and environmental sciences and diverse modern research and extension platforms and by promoting extensive international collaborations. Science shapes the future. Knowledge is to realize our dream.