Tel Aviv University, IIT Madras collaborate to offer water quality course.

In an effort to develop water-literate citizens, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) in collaboration with Tel Aviv University, Israel, and KMCH-Research Foundation (KMCH-RF), Coimbatore, are offering a course on water quality.

This four-month course is perfect for final-year science and engineering students, as well as anyone with a technical background who is interested in water quality. It is provided in hybrid mode through the NPTEL online platform.

In order to promote water literacy, the course organizers are working with students to create a water map of India and the rest of the world. Following a thorough introduction to the basic concepts of water quality, students will do real-world assessments, such as surveys. Upon completion, they will receive a certificate that they can use to get credit toward their degree program through their university.

On July 29, 2024, registration for this course will open. Candidates who are interested can register by clicking this link: bit.ly/3zgpkMy.

Along with guest lecturers from Purdue University, BARC, and IIT Madras, the course teachers are Professor T Pradeep and Professor Ligy Philip from IIT Madras, Professor Hadas Mamane and Professor Ram Fishman from Tel Aviv University, and Dr. G Velmurugan from KMCH-Research Foundation.

Professor Thalappil Pradeep, a Padma Shri Awardee and Institute Professor in the Chemistry Department at IIT Madras, welcomed everyone interested in maintaining the quality of the water to enroll in this course and stated, “Achieving Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations is possible only when people understand the reasons that limit their realisation.” Among these is the quality of the water. Through this training, participants will develop trustworthy data on water quality and increase their water literacy. The training is a component of a global endeavor to train water professionals.

The course, titled “A Hybrid Course on Water Quality: An Approach to People’s Water Data,” will provide students with a thorough understanding of critical water quality components, as well as an examination of crucial characteristics and how they affect human health. Additionally, a database of water quality from various sources, including homes, rivers, borewells, groundwater, and pipeline networks, will be established.

The lectures will be available for the students to watch on demand, offline, or online. Online tests and assignments will be used to gauge their grasp of the material. Those who sign up for the practical session will use field test kits and handheld devices, among other tools, to conduct measurements in the lab and outdoors. Free chlorine, total chlorine, alkalinity, pH, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), conductivity, total dissolved solids (TDS), temperature, turbidity, and the presence or absence of E. Coli and total coliforms are among the water quality characteristics that were examined.

The course has been developed on the basis of a pilot study that involved college students and was conducted last summer in various locations throughout Tamil Nadu, including Erode and Chennai. In order to provide online data on water quality with spatial coordinates and survey inputs, the data from this endeavor was combined.