International Certificate Training Program on Micro-Irrigation Systems

e-Learning

The International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) and Central Water Commission (CWC) proudly present the first joint online International Certificate Course

on Micro Irrigation Systems in collaboration with the National Water Academy (NWA), Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd. (JISL), and Netafim Irrigation India Pvt. Ltd.

UN Sustainable Development Goal Target 17.9 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the dedicated target to

capacity- building and aims to “Enhance international support for implementing effective and targeted capacity-building in developing countries to support national plans to implement all the

sustainable development goals.

Global water scarcity and increased demand for food are two main drivers for the urgent efforts to improve food productivity in agriculture, the sector that consumes 70-80% of annual freshwater availability. Micro-irrigation Systems (MIS) are fundamentally designed and operated to economize water application in crop fields. As MIS is an evolving technology, the existing curricula on these systems are still not adequately covered in regular academic programs. Also, the professionals who are already working in the areas of agricultural water management (AWM), and water resources management (WRM) have had limited exposure to MIS concepts and practices thus far.

The proposed short duration certification course offers to fill such existing knowledge and skills gaps.

Course Structure: The course, based on a points-system, has an inherent flexibility to suit the learning needs of prospective trainee through 3 main modules on MIS, namely:

(1) Agronomic Aspects: Basic science of soil-water-crop interactions in various agro-climatic regimes; crop-specific cultural requirements; water and nutrient movements in micro-irrigation environment; irrigation scheduling and fertigation cycles; cropping patterns; and so on.

Invited Experts/ Core Faculty Team

CentralWaterCommission

Felix ReindersPresident, ICID

Ashwin B. PandyaSec. Gen., ICID

Dr. P. SomanJISL

Dilip YewalekarJISL

Abhijit Bhaskar JoshiJISL

Prof. Narayana Moorthy

Anna University

Manisha KingeJISL

Ramdas BattalwarNetafim

Abhijeet H. SurveNetafim

Ajay DhalpawarNetafim

Tushar KarandeNetafim

Dr. Sahdev SinghDirector (KM), ICID

Prof. Sunil Gorantiwar,NWA

Dr. Neelam PatelInvited Expert

Dr. T.B.S. Tajput Invited Expert

Dr. Mohamed Wahba Invited Expert

Virendra Sharma NWA

Mrs. Madhuri Dixit Ghugari, NWA

For brief profiles, please visit https://icid.moodlecourse.com/

Ashok KharyaChief Engineer, NWA

Rajendra Kumar Jain Chairman, CWC

Lectures/ Presentations

S. No. Topics

1 Rationale for Water Saving in Agriculture and An Over-view of the MIS Course

2 Soil-Water-Crop interactions and Crop-Specific Agro-nomic Practices

3 Water Resources for MIS- Water resource planning for irrigation with specific reference to MIS

4 MIS Concepts, Advantages, Disadvantages, Types, and hardware and software Components of MIS

5 Dynamics of water and fertilizer movement within the soil under MIS

6 Complete MIS Design Processes (Drip and Sprinkler)

7 Crop-Specific Irrigation and Fertigation Scheduling including DSS

8 Installation, Operation and Maintenance of MIS Drip-pers and Nozzles/ Quality Assurance/ Automation; Troubleshooting MIS

9 Human Capacity Needs for MIS and Training Options

10 Costing and Economic Analysis of MIS

11 Community-based MIS Irrigation

12 Commercially Available Products and Services for MIS

13 Case Studies on Small-scale MIS

14 Large-Area Pipe Distribution Networks for MIS

15 Solar Powered MIS

16 Emerging Technologies for MIS

17 Low-head MIS for Small Farms

18 Financial Support Schemes from the Government and Private Sector

19 Recommendations and Way Forward

20 Interactive webinars on MIS (One each at Start, in the Middle and at the End of the Course)

(2) Engineering Aspects: MIS principles and practices; types of MIS currently used and their suitability in various scenarios; drip/sprinkler design and related processes; power and energy options for different water sources; and commercially available products and services for MIS in various parts of the world; and so on.

(3) Management Aspects: Field implementation challenges and solutions; potential financial support schemes in various countries; operational and maintenance requirements; capacities needed in the communities using MIS; and so on.

Course Requirements: Prospective trainees will undergo an intensive learning exercise through 35 online sessions comprising audio-video lectures, webinars, assignments, quizzes, hands-on activities, and face-to-face online interactions with the course faculty to earn an international certificate that will add value to their professional credentials.

Prospective Beneficiaries: The course is intended for those professionals who are working in the areas of AWM/ WRM and the current students in the academic programs oriented towards broader aspects of AWM/ WRM.

Delivery Mechanism: The course is being delivered through a Moodle platform - an open source learning management sytem designed to provide educators, administrators and learners with a single robust, secure and integrated system to create personalized learning environments. The online course include reading material, pre-recorded lectures, videos, presentations, interactions, discussions, webinars etc.

Course URL: https://icid.moodlecourse.com/

Commencement Date: The online course is scheduled to be commended in first week of October 2020.

How to Enroll: International participants, may please fill the registration form online by 11th September 2020 at: https://forms.gle/ZcP3r2gcJmi2KCtZA

For Indian participants: https://forms.gle/T5mNpHRDicn7KL6DA(No fees is applicable for Indian participants. Registration opens till 30 September 2020 and nominated participants will be announced on NWA website (https://nwa.mah.nic.in) latest by 2 October 2020).

Course Fee: This year participation in the course for a limited number of qualified individuals is free. You will have access to course lectures/videos, international webinars, and reference material. If you require the International Certificate of successful completion of the course, you will need to pay a fee of US$100 to cover the cost of your personalized online evaluation process. through quizzes and assignments. On successful completion of the course, a certificate will issued on registered email in PDF format.Instructions for secure online payment will be informed to the selected candidates.

Contact:

Dr. Sahdev Singh, Director (Knowledge Management), International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, Email: sahdevsingh@icid.org, icid@icid.org, Website: http://www.icid.org

Mr. Harish Umbarje, Director, National Water Academy, Central Water Commission, Pune (Maharashtra), India. Email: nwa.mah@nic.in, harishumbarje@gmail.com, Website: https://nwa.mah.nic.in/

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