Global Initiatives

Water control and management for enhancing resilience to natural disasters and improving agricultural productivity

Objectives

Rural engineering is one of the research areas being promoted at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), focusing on management of agricultural land and water including prevention of natural disasters, improvement of agricultural productivity, and better utilization of regional resources. NARO conducts the international peer review meeting every year to provide an independent assessment of various research programs based on the scientific quality, originality and direction from the view point of overseas reviewers, and to make an overall evaluation on the potential impact of the research results to the food and agriculture industry. The peer review of the research program on rural engineering aims to evaluate the research projects on water control and management, namely, (1) Countermeasures to natural disasters for developing resilient rural areas, (2) State-of-the-art technologies on land consolidation and water management, and (3) Water management for regional resources utilization. The evaluation of the peer reviewers is expected to improve the scientific values of the projects, to find effective ways for extending the technologies overseas, and to seek collaborations with international researchers in these fields.

Date

October 25, 2018


Venue

Tsukuba Business-Academia Cooperation Support Center
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research Council Secretariat of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
2-1-9 Kannondai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki


Peer Reviewers

  • Prof. Bart Schultz
    IHE DELFT Institute for Water Education, Netherlands
  • Dr. Vazken Andreassian
    National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture, France
  • Prof. Ming-Daw Su
    National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

Review Process

The peer review is carried out by evaluating the scientific quality, originality and specific direction of the research on rural engineering and applicability of the results to the development of rural areas. Each research project is evaluated with the following rating. S: high quality and no revision needed; A: good quality and minor revision needed, B: fair quality and moderate revision needed, C: fair quality and major revision needed, D: poor quality and a complete rewrite needed. Additionally, the peer reviewers provide rating, comments, suggestions and recommendations for each research project and the entire research program.


Research Projects

    Section 1: Countermeasures to natural disasters to achieve resilient rural areas
  • Project 1-1 Disaster prevention support system for irrigation ponds
    Dr. Toshikazu Hori, Division of Facilities and Geotechnical Engineering, NIRE
  • Project 1-2 Countermeasure techniques for water-related hazards in coastal farmlands
    Dr. Hirohide Kiri, Division of Hydraulic Engineering, NIRE

  • Section 2:State-of-the-art technologies on land consolidation and water management
  • Project 2-1 Subsurface water level control system and remote-controlled on-farm water management system as new paddy field irrigation technologies
    Mr. Tatsumi Tomosho, Division of Agricultural Environment Engineering, NIRE
  • Project 2-2 Reorganization and restructuring technologies of canal water delivery system
    Dr. Hiroyuki Taruya, Division of Hydraulic Engineering, NIRE
  • Project 2-3 Developing and promoting the spread of farming drainage techniques
    Dr. Iwao Kitagawa, Division of Agricultural Environment Engineering, NIRE

  • Section 3:Efficient management and utilization of regional resources in rural areas
  • Project 3-1 Prediction of drought and inundation in a changing environment
    Dr. Takeo Yoshida, Division of Regional Resources Engineering, NIRE
  • Project 3-2 Investigation techniques of groundwater flow dynamics for rural groundwater management
    Dr. Takeo Tsuchihara, Division of Regional Resources Engineering, NIRE

Peer Review Report

Centers・Institutes