Week 2: Visit to Anna University

December 3, 2019

Hi everyone,

Fieldwork, well mainly planning, started on Mon. Nov. 25th 2019, which is very exciting. I’ll get to this soon but first I want to recap on my second week in India, where I spent the week visiting a number of researchers at Anna University in Chennai. Over the week, I had many fruitful conversations discussing water management approaches and tank rehabilitation in the context of southern India and was humbled to see the magnitude of projects/research being conducted on the ground. I also located some precipitation data for the basin which will be exciting to dig into once I am home.

At Anna, I was working with Dr. Ambujam and Dr. Krishnaveni, both of whom are at the Center for Water Resources department at the University. Both professors are involved in tank irrigation projects and water management projects in the south and have worked to understand how tank structural form and their management can be improved. Thank you again Drs. Ambujam and Krishnaveni for the many insightful talks and taking the time to educate me during the week.

I did two presentations of my research during the week: 1) to a graduate irrigation management class and 2) to researchers involved in remote sensing in some capacity. The discussion stirred up interesting topics surrounding siltation monitoring in tanks and how my research can apply to the community level. During the week I also met my three marvellous field students (Naveen, Ram, and Sangamithran) who are travelling in the field with me the next two weeks to help with translation and logistics. I say marvellous because I’m currently in a car on my way to a field site while they continually navigate logistics. This field exploration wouldn’t be possible without them. Plus, they are also pretty great to hang out with so that’s an added bonus!

Thanks for reading.