Agricultural water management

The course aims to provide the students with the elements for knowing, understanding, measuring, predicting, and planning agricultural water management issues. Water use efficiency and conservation of natural resources are important focuses of the course.
The course is organised as an interdisciplinary laboratory, in which professors from different disciplines (hydrology, rural buildings and agro-forest land planning, economics, and physical geography and geomorphology) guide the students in carrying out a project based on a case study, by integrating lectures, field work, and data analysis.
This laboratory gives students the possibility, while learning specific concepts and skills related to agricultural water management, to acquire transversal skills, such as group work, discussion of results, communication of concepts, and critical evaluation and use of literature sources.

At the end of the course the students should:
· know and understand the physical, technical, and economic issues of water management for agriculture, at the district and basin scales;
· know and understand the options for agricultural water use at the district and basin scale, and their effects;
· know who are the stakeholders involved in agricultural water management, and which are their interests;
· be able to collect and integrate data, also through measurements, and to analyse the status of agricultural water use at the district and basin scales;
· know and understand the governance tools for agricultural water management;
· know and understand the tools for the economic evaluation of public choices on agricultural water management;
· know, understand and be able to use tools for predicting the impacts of agricultural water management decisions at the district and basin scales;
· understand and assess agricultural pressures on water quality and related mitigation options
· be able to prepare plans for sustainable agricultural water management at the district and basin scale, considering local constraints and preserving ecosystems.
Students will also be able to:
· independently evaluate methods to monitor, analyse, and plan agricultural water management;
· clearly summarise and communicate, in writing and orally, information and ideas related to agricultural water management;
· independently find and evaluate literature sources and databases about agricultural water management, to update their knowledge.