On July 23, 2020, the National Key Research and Development (R&D) Program Project "Research on Key Technologies and Small Equipment for Environmental Restoration of Frozen Soil and Freezing-thawing Water in Village and Town communities" held a kick-off meeting at the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). This project is undertaken by IAE, and participated by Chongqing University, and the (Chengdu) Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, CAS and Ministry of Water Resources. Project review experts, including Prof. GUO Jinsong of Chongqing University and others, attended the meeting.

FANG Yunting, deputy director of IAE, delivered a speech on behalf of IAE and welcomed the arrival of project review experts. WANG Xugao, division head of the Science and Technology Division of IAE, expressed that the institute would fully support the project to proceed smoothly. Prof. GUO Jinsong, introduced the overall design, time arrangement, and innovative features of the program. He affirmed the importance of restoring the polluted water and soil environment in village and town communities. After that, Prof. GONG Zongqiang, project investigator, introduced the objectives, evaluation criteria, research contents, task partitioning, technical routes and detailed work plans of the ("Frozen Soil and Freezing-thawing Water") project. Then, the researchers in charge of the sub-projects talked in detail about their own research plans. The project review experts fully affirmed the project design, but they also set higher standards and high expectations for this project.

On the afternoon of July 23, GUO Jinsong presided over an internal exchange meeting and put forward detailed suggestions for each sub-project. On July 24, Prof. GUO Jinsong and the core members of the ("Frozen Soil and Freezing-thawing Water") project went to Xiuyan and Haicheng to investigate the contaminated sites for research.

The kick-off meeting of the project laid a good foundation for the promotion of the project research on water and soil environment governance in village and town communities.