IIT Madras, Tel Aviv University Partner For Water Quality Course

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), in collaboration with Tel Aviv University, Israel, and KMCH-Research Foundation (KMCH-RF), Coimbatore, has launched a water quality course aimed at creating water-literate citizens. This four-month hybrid course, available through the NPTEL online platform, is targeted at final-year science and engineering students and others with a technical background interested in water quality.

The course, which begins on July 29, 2024, and closes for registration on July 20, 2024, will focus on building a comprehensive water quality map of India and the world through student participation. Participants will learn fundamental aspects of water quality and conduct practical tests and surveys. Upon completion, they will receive a certificate that may be credited as part of their degree program.

Course instructors include Prof. T. Pradeep and Prof Ligy Philip from IIT Madras, Prof Hadas Mamane and Prof Ram Fishman from Tel Aviv University, and Dr G Velmurugan from KMCH-Research Foundation, with guest lecturers from IIT Madras, BARC, and Purdue University.

Prof. Thalappil Pradeep, Padma Shri Awardee and Institute Professor at IIT Madras, emphasized the importance of understanding water quality to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. He highlighted that this course will train participants to build reliable water quality data, making them water-literate professionals.

Titled “A Hybrid Course on Water Quality: An Approach to People’s Water Data,” the course offers a thorough understanding of water quality, analysis of key parameters, and their impact on human health. It aims to create a database of water quality from diverse sources, including households, rivers, borewells, groundwater, and pipeline networks.

Students can attend lectures online, offline, or in recorded form and will be evaluated through online assignments and quizzes. Practical sessions involve field and lab measurements using hand-held instruments and test kits. Key water quality parameters studied include free chlorine, total chlorine, alkalinity, pH, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), conductivity, total dissolved solids (TDS), temperature, turbidity, and the presence of E. coli and total coliforms.

The course design is based on a pilot study conducted in various locations across Tamil Nadu, where data was collected to create an online water quality database with spatial coordinates and survey inputs. Practical sessions will take place in multiple cities and villages, requiring significant local participation.

Interested candidates can register at [this link](https://bit.ly/3zgpkMy) and contact the course coordinators, Dr. Ramya Dwivedi at IIT Madras (ramya_coe@icsrpis.iitm.ac.in) or Ms. Suzan Kagan at Tel Aviv University (suzankagan@gmail.com) for more details.