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WATER EDUCATION AND INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTas the establishment of the required laboratory and computationalfacilities should be a priority. Laboratories should be well-providedwith state-of-the-art equipment. Training in traditional computerprogramming is not adequate to prepare water resources studentsto deal with the available computing technology. There is a criticalneed to formalize the computing curriculum in water resourceseducation to meet the challenges of this fast-growing technology.Postgraduate education in hydrology and water resources inIndia is being imparted at a number of academic organizations. Thesyllabi of these postgraduate courses are revised keeping in viewpast deliberations which later came up as the recommendations ofinternational organizations. However, a lot more needs to be done inview of the challenges being faced in the area of hydrology and waterresources considering anthropogenic changes to global water andenergy cycles, natural periodicity and climate change. Consideringthe present day requirements of water resources in the country, thereis a need to strengthen postgraduate-level programmes by includingsome advanced level courses such as coastal hydrology, snowand glacier hydrology, arid zone hydrology, forest hydrology, urbanhydrology, environmental hydrology and eco-hydrology in additionto the conventional courses of surface water hydrology, groundwaterhydrology and watershed management. Furthermore, coursesare needed on the application of modern tools and soft computingtechniques in hydrology and water resources, covering geographicalinformation system (GIS) technology; remote sensing; isotopictechniques; laboratory-based soil investigations; hydraulic andhydrological investigations; water quality; hydrological instrumentation;the development and applications of software and informationtechnology; operational research and soft computing techniques likeartificial neural networks, fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms; basicconcepts of artificial intelligence; integrated flood management;decision support systems (DSSs) and their applications; and integratedwater resources development and management. Postgraduatecourses should be framed with a six-month or one-yearproject, wherein students are given water resourcesproblems to solve after reviewing existing knowledge inthe area. This could be a research project or the developmentof software integrating the latest knowledge inthe courses leading to the integrated planning, developmentand management of water resources.In order to meet the needs of short-term and longtermplans for water resources development andmanagement in the country, the creation of suitablemechanisms for education and training of hydrologistsis not only necessary at degree and postgraduatelevel, but also at junior levels, such as junior engineers,technicians or observers. Adequate trained manpoweris necessary to improve the capabilities of operationalorganizations at the centre and in the states withregard to observations as well as primary and secondaryprocessing of hydrological data. Though there is noregular course for technicians training in hydrology,meteorology and other related fields, various organizationslike the Central Water Commission (CWC),India Meteorological Department (IMD), CentralGround Water Board (CGWB) and the state irrigationdepartments, which deal with subjects related to waterresources, have created facilities for on-the-job andin-service training of personnel. However, the trainingprogrammes for technicians and observers are highlyinadequate. There is only partial coverage of hydrologyand water resources as a subject under civil engineeringdiploma courses to provide background to personnelat junior hydrologist level. The education and trainingprogrammes for observers and technicians may betaken up by polytechnic institutes, industrial trainingImage: National Institute of HydrologyContinuing education programmes, summer courses and refresher courses are being organized by a wide range of institutions[ 141 ]