The Indian Institute of Technology Madras has set up a centre to develop innovative adaption strategies to cope with climate change.
The Global water and climate adaptation centre, being established with support from German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), was virtually inaugurated on Wednesday.
The institute will host the main hub with a satellite hub at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok.
The German institutes of Technical University of Dresden and RWTH Aachen University, are collaborators and the Centre is named ABCD (Aachen-Bangkik-Chennai- Dresden).
Karin Stoll, consul general, Federal Republic of Germany Chennai, said thanks to digitisation, the project was not delayed. “COVID-19 is not over yet but we have to be optimistic and make use of the opportunities.”
The Centre, headed by S.A. Sannasiraj, Department of Ocean Engineering, would work as an enabling platform that incentivises, bundles and magnifies further joint action in higher education, research, technology and knowledge transfer.
Institute director Bhaskar Ramamurthi said the new venture would bring new opportunities for students in the field of water security and climate change.
The institute has proposed to offer a joint global M Sc programme on water security and global change. A joint doctoral research programme to promote inter-disciplinary work and bring novel knowledge to address water security under global partnering institutes has also been launched.
Mr. Sannasiraj said, “This centre will contribute significantly to the hydrodynamic, wave and morpho-dynamics modelling capabilities of IIT Madras” and complement the institute’s expertise on adaptation and rehabilitation measures of coastal infrastructure.
