On January 2014 , director of Center National Remote Sensing Xiaohan Liao and professor Gong visited USGS ， and they had a full discussion with USGS about Landsat program , Land Changing program and Land Carbon program . A preliminary cooperation intention which would use the carbon balance and fire disturbance data of forest , grassland and wetland was reached and both sides decided to launch a pilot project . Daxinganling in China and Montana in U.S. were chosen as comparative study areas . The United States offered to two national parks - Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park as key research areas .

May 15-22 , 2014 ，Chief Scientist of U.S. terrestrial carbon program , Dr. Zhiliang Zhu convened researchers from USGS, University of academics Maryland , Oregon State University and other institutions ，Professor Gong from Tsinghua University and other scientists from National Remote Sensing Center , Chinese Academy of Forestry , Chinese Academy etc. to have a two-day conference . Then they visited Fire Research Center of U.S. Forest Service and studied 6 typical ecosystems and fire blanks in the wild field . During the meeting , professor Gong and Dr. Zhu signed the cooperation agreement for the pilot project on behalf of China and US . This project will carry out a four-year collaborative research based on the item . All the participators including Institution of Geography and Resources of Chinese Academy , Agricultural zoning Institution of Chinese Agricultural Academy and Nanjing University are all coordinated by National Remote Sensing Center .