Dr Ruilian Zhan is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at UQ’s Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI). He is also a member of the International Association of Impact Assessment (IAIA), and the International Network of Displacement and Resettlement (INDR).
Ruilian's interests are in the various dimensions of resettlement, covering involuntary land acquisition and resettlement, livelihoods, social impact assessment, and the social and environmental risks of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. He completed his PhD at the National Research Centre for Resettlement (NRCR), Hohai University, China. He has published 11 major technical reports (6 in Chinese, 5 in English), and 26 peer-reviewed articles (11 in Chinese, 15 in English).
Industry Engagement
Ruilian has engaged in industry-facing projects through applied research with hydropower developers, government bodies, international lenders, and international and bilateral financial organizations. These include the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), European Investment Bank (EIB), and Appraisal Centre for Environment & Engineering (ACEE) of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, China. His focus is to examine patterns of mining-induced displacement and resettlement worldwide.
Collaborations
From 2015 to 2017, Ruilian was an assistant supervisor to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects financed by the Appraisal Center for Environment & Engineering (ACEE) of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. His projects in this area include: (i) Environmental Risk Identification of the China-Central South Peninsula Economic Corridor, (ii) Strategic Environmental Assessment of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, (iii) Research on the Social Safeguard Policy Framework of the “Belt & Road” initiative, and (iv) Environmental and Social Impact Assessment for Foreign Investment in Brazil.