2017 Editor-in-Chief Meeting of Science of Soil and Water Conservation (SSWC) was held in the Yangling of Shaanxi on October 22. The Vice President of Chinese Society of Soil and Water Conservation, Prof. LIU Guobin, attended the meeting and addressed the opening speech. The Deputy Secretary General of Chinese Society of Soil and Water Conservation, Prof. DING Lijian hosted the meeting, and the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors-in-Chief and all editorial staff were in the meeting.

Associate Editor-in-Chief, Prof. ZHU Qingke, summarized and reported the work of the 4th Editorial Board of the SSWC during 2016 -2017. Since the establishment of 4th Editorial Board, all members of the 4th Editorial Board strictly implemented the editorial member peer-review system under the supervision of the Editor-in-Chief, actively organized manuscripts by focusing hot topics, and steadily enhanced the influence of the SSWC. All those efforts contributed to accreditation by authoritative evaluation system of scientific journals in China, such as in CSBD, in “A Guide to the Core Journals of China” of Peking University, and in the Key Magazine of China Technology by ISTIC.

Associate Editor-in-Chief ZHU Qingke added the following efforts were done for improving the quality of SSWC:

·         Recruited English editor with over 20 years’ experience of using English in word-top universities and organizations, for enhancing the English editorial level and gradually promoting the internationalization of the SSWC;

·         Meanwhile, strengthened the digital construction, used the Internet platforms, and actively expanded the impact of the SSWC. The official website of the SSWC  was added with the HTML format for downloading the full text of each article in addition to the previous PDF format, and this allows the hyperlinks of pictures, figures and tables, and literature in each article, thus all greatly enhanced the user experience of reading and click rate.

Associate Editor-in-Chief ZHU Qingke also listed issues in manuscript resource, the process of reviewing a manuscript, and sales of the SSWC. He expected that the Editor-in-Chief and every Associate Editor-in-Chief would support the development of SSWC as always, and further strengthen the development of manuscript resources, and play a greater role for improving the overall qualiy of the SSWC and promoting the healthy development of SSWC.

The 6th Assessment Plan for Excellent Papers published in the SSWC was discussed and passed, and further the issues of SSWC’s niche, the enhancement of academic quality, the process optimization of peer-reviewing manuscript, and the development direction of the SSWC also were extensively deliberated. Editor-in-Chief ZHOU Xincheng deployed the tasks of the SSWC in the future, and he said:

·         First of all, excellent papers are the cornerstone of the development of the SWCC, and the selection activities should be organized in strict accordance with the requirements of the "The Assessment Methods for the Excellent Paper Award in Science of Soil and Water Conservation" (Trial Implementation);

·         Secondly, the peer review database should be optimized, the review process in the system should be adjusted, thus the peer review cycle would be effectively shortened;

·         And thirdly, paralleling with the increase of basic researches and using digitalization and intelligent as the breakthrough point, we should increase the release of innovative research results, promote the development of soil and water conservation as a discipline and as public concerns.

In the afternoon, the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors-in-Chief, and all editorial staff had an informal discussion with the Editor-in-Chief and editorial staff from Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, Bulletin of Soil and Water Conservation, and Research of Soil and Water Conservation. The each editorial agent of above mentioned journals introduces own basic information, and then all attendees discussed at passion and deeply exchanged the aspects of the purpose of own journal, journal’s model, review process, and the development of soil and water conservation as a discipline