The AquaMAP website was launched on March 19 along with the inaugural ceremony of the centre. Source: Facebook
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has inaugurated AquaMAP Water Management and Policy Centre and also launched its website on March 19.
K Vijay Raghavan, principal scientific adviser India, and V Kamakoti, director, IIT Madras, inaugurated the AquaMAP Water Management and Policy Centre. Ligy Philip, faculty coordinator of AquaMAP, P Balasubramanian, CEO, Theme Work Analytics and Krishnan Narayanan, president, itihaasa Research & Digital and IIT Madras alumni association were also present at the inaugural ceremony.
Commenting on the purpose of AquaMAP, Raghavan said, “Our world faces the consequences of climate change and the pressure on biodiversity. Thus, renewing our air, water, and land and pressing sustainable development to become important.”
Kamakoti further added that water consumption in the agriculture sector is the maximum among all the needs, and therefore focus on improving the agricultural water use efficiency is one of the major focuses of AquaMAP.
The project aims at providing solutions for complex and challenging water problems by designing and evolving smart and optimal water management practices. Also, it will be implementing them in the field, at different locations across the country, as a scalable model by leveraging best practices in management and innovative technologies. AquaMAP is a national water centre and IIT Madras is collaborating with IIT Dharwad around the broad theme of ‘Data Science for Water Security and Agriculture Sustenance’.
According to IIT Madras, AquaMAP will adapt field (in villages and towns) implementation of water technologies and management practices. It will identify grand challenges in water/wastewater management for focused attention and set up a state-of-the-art hydro-informatics laboratory.
Ligy Philip, faculty coordinator of AquaMAP, announced the first three projects of the centre and said, “We have a multi-disciplinary faculty team from departments of Chemistry, Civil, Chemical and Humanities, supporting me at AquaMAP. We also have a fantastic set of water experts counseling us in our governing and advisory board.”