IIT Roorkee training Govt officials of African Countries in ‘Water Resources Management’ at Department of Hydrology

Roorkee: Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee is training Government officials of African Countries in Water Resources Management. This International Training Programme on ‘Water Resources Management’ is sponsored by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, under the memorandum of understanding formulated in an Indo-Africa Summit meeting and was held from 13th to 31st August 2018 at the Department of Hydrology. Africa has more than 50 important water basins covering almost all the African countries. The entire territories of around fourteen countries fall within the shared river basins. About one-third of the world’s international river basins are found in Sub-Saharan Africa wherein international river basins are the principal source of water resources. Water is a key driver of economic, social development and the integrity of natural environment of these countries.

The valedictory function and certificate distribution was held on August 31, 2018. Prof. Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi, Director IIT Roorkee and Chief Guest of the function distributed course attending certificates to the participating officials from the African countries.

Speaking on this occasion about the importance of this training program, Course coordinator Prof Manoj K. Jain, Head, Department of Hydrology, IIT Roorkee informed that 25 nominees from 8 African countries, namely, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malawi, Swaziland, Sudan, Chad, and Tunisia are attending this 3 week training programme. This programme emphasises on the concepts of water resources management in the context of African countries. He further informed that the programme extensively covered many aspects of water resources development and management including elements of watershed management, global water perspective, remote sensing and GIS application, fundamentals of ground water hydrology, design flood estimation, paradigm of ecological flows in changing environment, flood forecasting, integrated management for building resilience to climate change, impact of climate change and draught vulnerability, and assessment options.

While giving his address to the participants, Prof. Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi, Director IIT Roorkee said that IIT Roorkee is more apt to conduct such programmes as the institute is recognised in the country as one of the best technical Institute for studies related to subject area of hydrology, water resources development and management. He informed the participants that the designer of the Aswan Dam, one of the largest dams constructed across the Nile river in Egypt was an aluminous of the 1875 batch of Thomson College of Civil Engineering, Roorkee, the earliest predecessors to IIT Roorkee. He emphasized that IIT Roorkee would be willing to involve itself in the development of the water resources development activities of the African countries, if given an opportunity.

Thanking the Government of India and IIT Roorkee on the knowledge-sharing through this Programme two of their representatives from Nigeria and Swaziland informed in the concluding session of the programme that they had good knowledge gained from the conducted training programme and assured that they would like to intereact with the faculty of the Department of Hydrology. They further wished that such programmes are organised in future too.