IIT Madras, Tel Aviv University to offer course to build water quality map of India, the world

NEW DELHI: Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has announced that it will offer a water quality course in collaboration with Tel Aviv University Israel and KMCH-Research Foundation (KMCH-RF), Coimbatore. The four-month long course will be offered in hybrid mode through the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) online platform.

The course is ideal for final-year science and engineering students, and anyone with a technical background interested in water quality, the institute said. Further, IIT Madras encouraged universities to join hands in becoming a centre for practical sessions.

“The course organizers are working towards building a water map of India and the world by students, who will contribute to building water literacy. After a detailed introduction to fundamental aspects of water quality, students will conduct practical tests including surveys. They will receive a certificate upon completion which may be credited as part of their degree program via their institution,” IIT-M said in a statement.

The registration process for the water quality course will close on July 20. Classes are scheduled to begin on July 29.

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T Pradeep and Ligy Philip from IIT Madras, Hadas Mamane and Ram Fishman from Tel Aviv University, and G Velmurugan from KMCH-Research Foundation will serve as the course instructors, in addition to guest lecturers from IIT Madras, BARC and Purdue University.

Thalappil Pradeep, Padma Shri Awardee and professor at Department of Chemistry, IIT Madras, said: “Achieving Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations is possible only when people understand the reasons that limit their realisation. Water quality is one such aspect. This course will build reliable water quality data by people which will also make them water-literate. The course is part of an initiative to train water professionals for the world.”

Titled ‘A Hybrid Course on Water Quality: An Approach to People's Water Data’, the course will deliver a comprehensive understanding of important aspects of water quality, analysis of key parameters, and their impact on human health. It will also establish a database of water quality from diverse sources such as households, rivers, borewells, groundwater, and pipeline networks, Pradeep added.

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IIT-M: Water quality course

Students who enrol in the course will be given an option to attend the lectures in online offline, or in recorded form. They will be assessed through online assignments, and quizzes.

“Those registering for the practical session will do measurements in the field and lab with hand-held instruments and field test kits, among others. The water quality parameters studied include free chlorine, total chlorine, alkalinity, pH, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), conductivity, total dissolved solids (TDS), temperature, turbidity, as well as presence and absence of E. coli and total coliforms,” it said.

The course has been designed based on a pilot study done during the last summer in different places across Tamil Nadu such as Chennai and Erode, among others involving college students.

“The data from this endeavour was collated to create online data on water quality with spatial coordinates, and inputs from surveys. Since practical sessions occur at different cities and villages, it is essential to have many participants enrol from a given location and contribute towards building People’s Water Data,” it informed.