11 April 2024 (Thursday), 15:30-17:30 Hours (IST) 

The world’s population is expected to grow from 8 billion today to at least 9.8 billion by the year 2050. The population growth, urbanization and industrialization are imposing rapidly growing demands and pressures on the water and energy resources and causing, in many cases, imbalance between water supply and demand. This growing imbalance has led to shortages, competition, and other environmental pressures. Achieving food, water and energy security as well as improving the quality of life, while preserving the environment, will continue to pose major challenges to scientists, decision makers and technicians in the next few decades. Irrigation globally consumes around 70% of freshwater resources. This water is becoming increasingly scarce. Irrigation requires energy. Therefore, improving water and energy use efficiency and productivity in agriculture practices will be valuable.

The interdependence of the water, food and energy is well known since early civilization. The present challenge is how to produce more crop per drop per kilowatt energy per unit area of land. This is the essence of new focus on the nexus. The WEF Nexus has benefit at local, regional, national and trans boundary scales. Attempts were made to quantify the Nexus by the integration of water, energy and food securities. These securities accounts for accessibility and availability of those three elements.

The WEF nexus approach is a pathway for understanding complex and dynamic interlinkages between issues related to water, energy and food security. The WEF nexus is an innovative integrated approach through which cross-sectoral sustainability indicators can be derived. Sectoral approaches to resources management risk major and unintended consequences as they often fail to identify and manage cross-sectoral synergies and trade-offs. The model is a decision support tool that highlights priority areas for intervention. Use of appropriate models  will help influence policy and resource planning at different administrative levels to ensure better management of WEF resources holistically and equitably.

PRESENTATIONS

1. Development and Application of a Multi-Scale Water-Energy-Food Nexus Model by Rajendra Singh, Professor, Agricultural & Food Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India

2. The integrative analytical WEF Nexus model: Its Applications and Derivatives by Luxon Nhamo, Sylvester Mpandeli, Cuthbert Taguta, Tafadzwa Mabhaudhi, Water Research Commission (WRC), South Africa

3. Integrated Modelling for Addressing Water-Energy-Food Nexus by Alok Sikka & Nexus Gains India Team, IWMI

INTRODUCTION

President Hon Prof. Dr. Ragab Ragab

Honorary President of The International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, ICID & Fellow Principal Hydrologist and Water Resources Management Specialist at UK Centre For Ecology & Hydrology, UKCEH, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, UK.

President (2020-2023) of the International Commission on Irrigation & Drainage, ICID (www.icid.org), Vice President (2010-2013) of the International Commission on Irrigation & Drainage, ICID, the Chairman of the Permanent Committee on Strategy and Organization, PCSO of ICID (2010-2014), Chairman of the Working Group on Water Food energy Nexus, ICID (present) and the Chairman of the British National Committee on Irrigation and Drainage, ICID-UK (2007-2011), founder of the WG on the use of non-conventional water resources for irrigation, ICID. Adjunct Professor, Alexandria University, Egypt (2007-present). International Adviser to several national and international organizations. Lecturer, supervisor, and external examiner to various Universities in and outside the UK. Evaluator for several funding organizations and member of promotion panels of several Universities.

Recipient of several National and International Awards. Reviewer for more than 20 International. Author and Co-Author of numerous scientific papers and Editor and Co-Editor of several special issues of International Journals as well as Conference Proceedings. Member of the Editorial Boards of four scientific journals including the Cambridge University Journal of Agricultural Science. Developed two widely used models, SALTMED for field scale as a tool for integrated management of water, soils, crops and N- fertilizers and IHMS (Integrated Hydrological Modelling System) for catchment/basin scale. Both models are freely available to download from ICID web site at https://www.icid.org/res_tools.html

Areas of work include, Hydrology, Irrigation and Drainage, remote sensing applications, urban hydrology, climate change impact on water resources, uncertainty analysis of predicted river flows, modelling at field and catchment scales, human intervention impact on water resources, management of non-conventional water resources at field and catchment scales, Water-Food-Energy Nexus, Crop Irrigation Water Requirement determination, Water Saving technologies and Water Harvesting at different scales.

SPEAKERS

Dr. Rajendra Singh, IIT Kharagpur, India

Dr. Rajendra Singh has been a faculty in the Agricultural and Food Engineering Department at IIT Kharagpur, since 1989. He has been associated with the Soil and Water Conservation Engineering discipline of the department (presently known as Land and Water Resources Engineering). He did his Ph. D. from IIT Kharagpur, and post-doctoral research as a BOYSCAST fellow at the Danish Hydraulic Institute, Denmark. He did his second post-doctoral research at the University of Connecticut, USA. He has contributed significantly to the agricultural engineering profession through teaching, research, and technology transfer. He has developed and popularised five software packages, including the Hydrology_Calculator, SCS_Designer and DSS_ET to improve agricultural engineering education and research. He has guided 18 Ph.D. and 75 M.Tech. students, and as per Google Scholar, his h?index is 34 and the i?10?index is 65, which highlights his research contribution. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS). He has received the “Jawaharlal Nehru Award” for the best doctoral research, the “ICAR Young Scientist Award”, the “AICTE Career Award for Young Teachers”, “Recognition Award” in the area of “Soil and Water Conservation Engineering” from NAAS, and “Outstanding Book Award” from ISAE for his book “Soil and Water Conservation Structures Design”.

Dr Luxon Nhamo, South Africa

Dr Luxon Nhamo is a Research Manager with the Water Research Commission of South Africa (WRC), specialising in Agricultural Water Management and transformative and circular approaches for sustainable climate change adaption. He is also an Honorary Researcher with the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). Dr Nhamo prides himself in working with on transforming the livelihoods of vulnerable smallholder farmers in marginalised areas. He has more than 20 years of progressive research experience spanning three continents (South America, Europe, and Southern Africa). Dr Nhamo has published over 80 internationally peer-reviewed research articles. His research interests include Agricultural Water Management, the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus, Transformative and Circular Approaches, Environmental GIS and Remote Sensing, and Climate Change adaptation.

Dr Alok K. Sikka, IWMI
 

Dr Alok K. Sikka is with International Water Management Institute, Delhi Office as IWMI Representative-India since April, 2016. Prior to joining IWMI, he served as Deputy Director General (Natural Resource Management), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Technical Expert (Watershed Development) (in the rank of Additional Secretary to Govt. of India), National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA), Planning Commission, Government of India, New Delhi. He was Director of ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region, Patna and Basin Coordinator for Indo-Gangetic Basin under the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food from 2002-2007. He is Ph. D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering with specialization in Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering from Utah State University, Logan, Utah. Besides working with ICAR for many years at Indian Institute of Soil & Water Conservation, Dehradun and its Research Centres, he was with National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee; visiting Professor at University of Arizona, Tucson; and Faculty at the Oregon State University, Corvallis, USA. He has more than 251 publications and is recipient of many national awards including Fellow of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Also, served as Chairman of Task Force Bureau of Water Use Efficiency, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Govt of India to develop road map and framework for increasing water use efficiency in irrigation, industry, urban, energy sectors.

He has a rich and diverse experience of over 38 years in research, institutional and policy issues, teaching, training, extension and consultancy in the areas of natural resource management, soil & water conservation, watershed management, water harvesting, hydrologic modelling, water management, drought management, climate change, water productivity and farming systems.

MODERATOR

VPH Dr. K. Yella Reddy, India

Dr. Kaluvai Yella Reddy, Vice President Hon of ICID, former Dean (Faculty of Agril. Engg & Technology) of ANGR Agricultural University, Andhra Pradesh, India.  He has more than 35 years of experience in teaching, research, project management and administration. He obtained B.Tech (Agril Engg) from Dr PDKV, Akola, M.Tech and Ph.D degrees from IIT, Kharagpur and PG Diploma from University of Arizona, USA.

• As Principal Investigator, Developed Solar Powered Micro Irrigation System in 2002 with the financial support of Govt of India.
• As Project Manager, successfully completed $ 3.5 million FAO funded AP Water Management Project.
• As Technical Advisor to Andhra Pradesh Micro Irrigation Project (APMIP), strengthened and supported the $ 570 million project in achieving 1.1 million ha under MI systems in 10 years
• As Director of WALAMTARI, Hyderabad (2012-2018) contributed for the growth of the Institute as one of the best in India.
• Organized over 25 national and international conferences and workshops and Published over 120 scientific papers
• Received  ‘International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage ICID WATSAVE Technology Award’ in the 20^th Congress of ICID held in Lahore (2008).
• Elected as Vice-President of (ICID)  in the 68^th International Executive Committee meeting held in Mexico City in Oct 2017.
• Contributed for obtaining  ‘World Heritage Irrigation Structures (WHIS) Awards’ for 18 projects  of India
• As Officer on Special Duty, Government of Andhra Pradesh, Organized 74^th   International Executive Committee (IEC) and 25^th ICID Congress in  Vizag, AP, India in November 2023.
• As Dean of the ANGR Agricultural University guided the teaching and research activities and obtained ICAR accreditation for all four colleges of the Faculty.