Question 66

In the face of climate change, how can irrigation and drainage contribute to the agro-ecological transition?

Keynote speaker, general and national reporters

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Daniel Zimmer

Keynote speaker

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Vinay Nangia

General reporter

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Delphine Leenhardt

National reporter

Keynote Speaker: Daniel Zimmer (Climate KIC, France) 

Daniel Zimmer has a background in Agricultural Engineering and in Hydrology. He graduated from the French “Institut National d’Agronomie”, today AgroParisTech, in Paris and completed a PhD in Hydrology at Paris VI University. He spent 15 years of his career at the French Agricultural and Environmental Engineering Research Centre (today INRAE). He also gained there a large international experience and during thsis period becase the Chair of the ICID Working Group on Drainage.

He became then for 9 years the Executive Director of the World Water Council where he contributed to the development of this institution and to its flagship event, the World Water Forum. He also conducted there to important projects in particular on financial issues, on disaster prevention and climate change impacts as related to water.

He joined the Climate Knowledge and Innovation Community (Climate-KIC) in 2010 as its Director for Innovation. He is engaged in a portfolio of projects aiming to accelerate the systemic transformation of land use and food supply chains in response to climate change in both mitigation and adaptation areas. He also co-chairs the Finance Working Group of the Global Framework on Water Scarcity in Agriculture (WASAG).

General Reporter: Vinay Nangia (IRCADA) 

Dr. Vinay Nangia is a Principal Scientist and Research Team Leader - Soil, Water, and Agronomy at ICARDA, a professor at Tottori University in Japan, a global fellow at the Daugherty water for Food Institute at University of Nebraska (USA) and an adjunct faculty at Texas A&M University (USA). 

Dr. Nangia has a Ph.D. degree in Water Resources Management and two master’s degrees - first in Biosystems & Agricultural Engineering and the second in Geographic Information Science – all from the University of Minnesota, USA. 

His leadership and team building skills have helped solve complex challenges to water resource management posed by climate change. His work has been supported by US$ 40 million of grant support from various donors such as the AFESD, CFC, FAO, GIZ, IFAD, OFID, USAID World Bank and bilateral funding from governments of China, Egypt, GCC countries, Iran, India and Morocco. 

Dr. Nangia has published over 300 publications including over 125 peer reviewed scientific articles in high impact journals and 40 book chapter/conference proceedings. Over the years, he has trained more than 50 graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and visiting scientists from all over the world.

He is recipient of several scientific awards and honours. He serves on FAO WASAG, UNCCD IWG on Drought, UNFCCC focal point for ICARDA and other high-level expert bodies. Dr. Nangia is an advisory board member of GIWEH (a Geneva-based water think tank). 

National Reporter: Delphine Leenhardt (INRAE)

After completing a PhD in soil science at INRA in Montpellier (1991), she joined the UMR AGIR in Toulouse in 1994, where she conducted research in agronomic engineering, focusing on quantitative water management at the territorial scale. She mobilized and developed agronomic knowledge, methods, and tools to adapt them to the needs of water managers and support their decision-making processes.

Her research, often carried out at the interface of biotechnical sciences, biophysics, and social sciences, aims to study and integrate the relationships between agricultural land use (cropping systems) and water resources. It addresses the objective of “spatial water management,” based on the assumption that land use can be regulated to achieve water management goals.

Her work focuses on the design and evaluation of scenarios by combining territorial modeling, modeling of bio-decision processes at the territorial level, participatory approaches, and evaluation methods.

Since joining the UMR G-EAU in 2021, she has been coordinating projects related to the agroecological transition of irrigated territories.

She is a member of the scientific council of the ACT department and serves as the department’s “water” correspondent. She also co-leads the interdepartmental network “agricultural systems and water.” She coordinated a book on water in agricultural environments (QUAE, 2020) and is a member of the Scientific Council of the Adour-Garonne Water Agency.