Prairie View A&M University is a member of a 20 land-grant university and two federal agency team awarded the National Water and Energy Conservation Award.
Established by the Irrigation Association in 1982, this award will be presented to the Team during the Irrigation Association’s upcoming annual meeting in Orlando, Florida on November 6-10, 2017.
Representing Prairie View A&M University on the Team is Ali Fares, Associate Director of Research of the Cooperative Agricultural Research Center and Professor, who studies water security, water allocation, flood prediction and mitigation, and hydrological modeling. Fares has served on the Microirrigation Working Group since 2003.
The award honors a company, organization or other group entity that made significant achievements in the conservation of water and energy due to irrigation procedures, practices, equipment, methods and techniques. It recognizes the participating 20 universities’ exceptional collaboration on their USDA-NIFA Multistate Project W-3128, “Scaling Microirrigation Technologies to Address the Global Water Challenge.”
The multistate project has three objectives that deal with irrigation scheduling, design and management of microirrigation systems, and development and transfer of technology to different stakeholders. The PVAMU-Water Team is contributing to all three objectives of this five-year multistate project, which started in 2014 and will continue until 2019.
The PVAMU Water Team contribution includes: i) optimizing water and nutrient management of selected vegetable crops grown in southeast Texas using different types of soil moisture sensors; ii) evaluating the performance of different evapotranspiration models in West Texas; iii) developing a mobile web app for irrigation scheduling, IrrigWise, that uses near real-time and forecasted weather data for a specific geographic location; and iv) demonstrating the impact of efficient irrigation water allocation for saving excess water and reducing energy losses and the reduction of unnecessary carbon dioxide emission across Harris county. The Water Team published 7 manuscripts and gave over 10 presentations in different venues during the past three years.
Research activities of the Water Team are supported largely by USDA-NIFA Evans-Allen funds. More detailed information about the Scaling Microirrigation Technologies to Address the Global Water Challenge project and the associated research scientists can be found at this site: www.cropinfo.net/MI.
The other 19 land-grant institutions honored are Texas A&M AgriLife Research, Auburn University, University of Arizona, Colorado State University, University of Florida, Tennessee State University, University of Idaho, Iowa State University, Kansas State University, Mississippi State University, University of Nebraska, New Mexico State University, Cornell University, Ohio State University, Oregon State University, University of Puerto Rico, University of the Virgin Islands, Washington State University, and University of Wyoming. The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and Agricultural Research Service are also contributing to this project. www.nimss.org/appendix_e/project?id=16476
Ali Fares Ph.D.
Associate Director for Research
(936) 261-5019
alfares@pvamu.edu
James M. Palmer, Ph.D.
Associate Provost for Academic Affairs
Interim Dean, College of Agriculture and Human Sciences
(936) 261- 2214
jmpalmer@pvamu.edu