The recipients of Shenzhen Youth May Fourth Medals 2022 were recently announced. Prof. Wang Xu from HITSZ's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering received one of them for his contributions to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area made via his research on major strategic issues like urban water security, carbon emissions peaking, and carbon neutrality.

As a National-level Young Talent and a core member of the Peacock Team of Smart Solutions to Urban Water Security in Shenzhen, he leads young researchers in projects that address key problems about water security and carbon neutrality. They have made internationally remarkable findings in fields such as water pollution control coupled with carbon emissions reduction and smart solutions to water security in cities. Those findings, published as papers in prestigious journals, like the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science Advances, Nature Communications, Engineering, and the Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences, have been positively commented on and cited by experts and scholars. Their efforts have presented the world with China's approach to water security, carbon emissions peaking, and carbon neutrality.