INARCH held its 2024 Annual Workshop from October 14–18, 2024 in Lanzhou and Zhangye in central China, meeting as a network in Asia for the first time.  The workshop was hosted by Dr. Tao Che, Dr. Shichang Kang, and Dr. Xin Li of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with tremendous local support from their staff and students.  A welcome dinner was held on October 14 for those who had just arrived.  On October 15, 46 scientists and students met in Lanzhou at the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for the workshop opening and some keynote presentations, as well as a short tour of the facility.  That afternoon, a smaller group (36 participants) travelled by bus to Zhangye in Gansu Province, about 500 km from Lanzhou and located in the Heihe River Basin near to field sites in the Qilian Mountains.  Over the next couple of days the workshop was held at the Zhangye Hotel and included scientific sessions and discussions, a tour of the Yakou snow observation supersite in the Qilian Mountains, updates on the Common Observing Period Experiment (COPE) and other initiatives, and social events to foster further collaboration.  Participants returned to Lanzhou on the afternoon of October 18 and departed from there.       

Scientific sessions included oral presentations and poster presentations with lightning talks, focusing on topics including: observations, remote sensing, and field experiments; model development, applications, and prediction; INARCH's COPE; and INARCH progress and the 2024 workshop statement.  The workshop was very fruitful in terms of assessing our progress, planning further activities, and scoping our contributions to global initiatives such as the International Year for Glaciers Preservation and UN Decade of Action for the Cryospheric Sciences. 

Some concrete outcomes and next steps are a proposed special issue of the journal, Hydrological Processes, and a focused scientific session at the European Geophysical Union 2025 General Assembly to share the results of our COPE and other advances.  The workshop statement below lists further notable highlights and outcomes.  We plan to meet again in September 2025 in Innsbruck, Austria, where we will hold our next annual workshop ahead of the International Mountain Conference (IMC2025) and hold a special session at the IMC2025.  Watch our Events Page for updates on this and other activities.

See the full workshop agenda here