This was the first Italian speleological expedition realised with
a common Italian – Chinese program. The organization of the
expedition took more than one year and included numerous official
contacts for defining the program and the type of collaboration.
The research carried out during the 1997 expedition was focused on
Ziyun County (Guizhou), situated 150 km to the southwest of Guiyang,
a territory still completely closed to tourists. Access is only allowed
for study purposes with government permission and in the company of
a Chinese research team. The major problems encountered in the research
area were connected to travel, as transfer was by boat or on foot
due to the lack of suitable roads, and to the provision of drinking
water supplies. Some of the activities carried out during this expedition
included a topographical survey of the karstic caves explored, sampling
of rocks and minerals, sampling of ground water for chemical analyses,
study of the external and hypogean morphology and collection of data
on the Radon concentration (222 Rn) present in the explored karstic
caves.
