On March 22, 2013, the twentieth anniversary of World Water Day, the UNESCO representative office in China organized the 2013 UN International Year of Water Cooperation campaign in Beijing. The Center for Water Research (CWR) of Peking University was among the co-organizers.

The activities focused on the theme of "water cooperation", and aimed to enhance the awareness of the public in the protection of water resources, and to achieve this through the interaction and cooperation between international organizations, businesses and schools.

On the same day in UN, senior officials stressed that greater cooperation is urgently needed for more equitable use and division of water. “Water is a common resource. Let us use it more intelligently and waste less so all get a fair share,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message for the Day.

In December 2010, the UN declared 2013 as the International Year of Water Cooperation, recognizing that cooperation is essential to strike a balance between the different needs and priorities and share this precious resource equitably, using water as an instrument of peace.

The status of water crisis in China is also serious due to the reduction of available fresh water resources, worsening pollution, and groundwater overuse.

In the campaign, CWR researcher Jie Liu and two students Min Zhou and Xiang Huang gave a good demonstration to the audience many concepts and phenomenon of water, such as underground aquifers, the groundwater level, pumping wells, artesian wells, groundwater contamination, and surface water/groundwater interaction, using a groundwater sand box physical model. This helped the young people gain intuitive understanding of groundwater resources, and enhanced their awareness of the protection of groundwater resources.

The demonstration by CWR