Rui Li is the president of World Association of Soil and Water Conservation (WASWAC). Since 1972 he has been involved in research on soil and water conservation planning, land resources investigation and monitoring of soil erosion using remote sensing, and made research achievements and contribution to regional soil and water conservation, application of remote sensing and GIS. He finished more than 30 projects as the leader or chief scientist, and 12 projects have been awarded at national and provincial levels. He has more than 130 papers published on the journals and international conferences and 15 books published as the chief editor or co-editor.