India and The Netherlands have a shared long standing relationship in bilateral water cooperation. The two national governments have been aimed at stimulating mutual participation in projects and programmes, the organization of conferences and workshops, and knowledge sharing for scientific and applied research educational programmes. Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and the Delft University of Technology have been working on a lot of collaborative projects related to sustainability of rural Indian communities. To further expand the joint research in the area of water sustainability, the two universities have established a joint center of excellence in Water Sustainability.
The collaborative center aims to bring out a joint research Doctoral program that will be initiated by the Center, where Doctoral student pairs from Amrita and TU Delft will be jointly guided by faculty from both the Universities. Along with this, both the universities will take up collaborative international initiatives, jointly organize training programmes, symposia, conferences, short courses, meetings on research issues of mutual interest and events for capacity building and networking, student and faculty exchange, exchange of information and resources, writing co-authored papers, etc. The center was established in the year 2022 .
The role of water in sustainability of the planet and its impact on climate change, multi hazards, food production, religion and culture, improved water infrastructure to reduce contamination, improve water supply etc. will be studied in depth. The function of water systems is to deliver access to water, to the required quality, at the required location, given the economic, environmental, and social constraints. Providing the service of access to water requires systems that can locate, transport, treat, distribute, and dispose off water. This requires energy, technology, finance, and engineering capabilities. This theme includes various research topics in sub-themes such as hydrological systems, sensors, urban water management and water infrastructure.
Research in drinking and waste water is the core of research interests for both the universities. Urban wastewater is particularly threatening when combined with untreated industrial waste. Applications of hanging gardens to remove nutrients, pathogens, aerosols monitoring, phototrophic treatment, nature-based solutions for monitoring, modeling and management of water quality, innovative technologies for fecal sludge removal etc. are broad areas covering research topics under this theme.
Most of the current technological innovations have originated from the developed world and thus found only limited adoption in the developing world due to the unique ways these two ‘worlds’ differ. No technology can be successful, unless it is adopted by the target population. Technology adoption has become a favored strategy in water systems management to reduce the impact of changes in both climatic conditions and urban population growth. Several determinants under socio-economic, cultural, psychological, political factors all play significant roles in successful adoption and sustained usage of technologies. Water can empower people, and women in particular, through a participatory process of water management. Technology-oriented management, balanced with human-oriented management needs to be nurtured and harnessed for effective water management.
Adoption of technology in any given community is impacted by its socio-economic-cultural landscape among other factors. Culture and socio-economic factors play a crucial role in technology adoption. One of the research initiatives under the joint venture between Amrita and TUD aims to identify and assess the socio-economic-cultural and psychological factors influencing the success or failure of community wide technology adoption in a multicultural perspective for a selected water purification technology, Jivamritam water purification system deployed in 300 Indian rural communities. Both contextual as well as psychological factors determine water purification technology adoption behavior. Socio-economic characteristics are perceived as the indirect drivers and psychological factors are perceived as the direct drivers of the behavior. Contextual factors cover socioeconomic, environmental, technical as well as institutional factors. Analyzing these factors behind successful adoption of the water purification technology becomes critical in designing effective interventions for behavior change. A conceptual model for technology adoption of solutions intended for community wide adoption is to be proposed. The research also intends to propose, design and evaluate the interventions required to improve community wide technology adoption rates in multicultural scenarios.
The objective of this partnership is to develop a multilingual digital platform with mobile and web interface to support actualizing the risk undertaken by farmers to grow cotton under any condition.
TU Delft presents the Amrita water center collaboration in an on-campus meeting with the Indian ambassador to Netherlands H. E. Ms. Sandhu on 3rd April 2023. The event will take place at DUWO Collegezaal – Professor Schermerhornstraat 4 2628 PZ Delft at 15:00 CET.
Joint Water Management Colloquium at TU Delft
February 16, 2023
Lifelong learning – Impact driven research inspired education
Chair: Miriam Coenders
Join this meeting at 8.30 PM (IST) / 4PM (CET) in lecture hall D and via zoom.
Program
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