Land and Water Engineering

Promote the advance of the engineering science in the area of land and water use in agriculture and in rural areas, giving special attention to the conservation of resources, the preservation and re-establishment of environmental balances, and the social and economic impacts of applications in order to realize sustainable development for both urban and rural societies.

• 2018 Report of Section I (Click here)
• 2013 Report of Section I (Click here)
• 2012 Report of Section I (Click here)
• 2011 Report of Section I (Click here)
• 2010 Report of Section I (Click here)

Mission:

The mission statement of CIGR Section 1: Land and Water is: “… to promote the advance of the engineering science in the area of land and water use in agriculture and in rural areas, giving special attention to the conservation of resources, the preservation and re-establishment of environmental balances, and the social and economic impacts of applications in order to realize sustainable development for both urban and rural societies …”

Objectives:

The mission statement of Section I implies a range of objectives that contribute to the promotion of engineering science in land and water use in agriculture. These are:

• Improving the knowledge on processes leading to or affecting the quality of land and water resources;
• Developing and applying technologies for land use planning, including forecasting land use changes, andassessing land use impacts;
• Improving the knowledge of hydrological processes as affected by land use and agricultural practices;
• Enhancing knowledge of water contamination by fertilizers and agro-chemicals, and other agricultural sources, as well as assessing control measures;
• Improving technologies for higher performances in irrigation and drainage;
• Assessing environmental impacts of land and water use in agriculture;
• Developing technologies, standards and monitoring systems for wastewater treatment and reuse, and use of low quality water in agriculture.

Scope:

Considering the objectives defined as above, the scope of CIGR-Section I refers to the following main subject areas:

• Soil management and soil technologies;
• Soil and water conservation and soil erosion assessment;
• Agricultural and rural watershed hydrology;
• Land use planning and management;
• Rural roads and related supporting infrastructures;
• Irrigation scheduling and on-farm irrigation systems;
• Surface and sub-surface drainage systems;
• Irrigation water supply, conveyance and distribution systems;
• Non-point and point source contamination assessment and control;
• Integrated soil and water use planning;
• Integrated impact assessment of land and water development projects;
• Modern technologies in land and water engineering, including modelling, information systems, remote sensing, decision support and expert systems.

Activities:

To achieve the objectives, several activities shall be developed by CIGR-Section I. These comprise:

• Organisation, sponsoring and co-sponsoring of seminars, workshops and conferences oriented to the objectives and scope of CIGR-Section I;
• Co-organisation of thematic special sessions, workshops or seminars on occasions of CIGR congresses;
• Collaboration in scientific committees of general themes of CIGR Congresses;
• Contributing to the e-journal of CIGR, both with papers and paper reviews, as well as to other publications of CIGR;
• Supporting the specialised working groups of CIGR of which themes fall in the domain of the Section, the respective Chair Persons becoming members of the Section Board;
• Establishing special relationships with other international societies of which field is common to that of Section I, namely the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage and the European Society for Soil Conservation, of which representatives are ex-office members of the Board of Section I;
• Developing relations with the regional Agricultural Engineering Societies for implementing common actions; at present one Vice-President of EurAgEng is ex-office member of the Board of Section I;
• Implementing inter-sections activities;
• Promoting exchanges of scientific information with professionals, such as through the FAO Agricultural Engineering sites.

The Section co-operates with three Working Groups:

• the Working Group on “Sustainable Land Use and Landscape Planning”, chaired by Gerrit J. Carsjens;
• the Working Group on “Water Management and Information Systems”, chaired by José Fernando Ortega;
• the Working Group on “Earth Observation for Land and Water Engineering”, chaired by Guido D’Urso.