Roberto Lenton

Director General, IIMI (1987-1994)

 

Largely as a result of high quality publications and effective outreach, IWMI has now become the most authoritative source of research-based information on the management of water for agriculture, and increasingly, on the management of water more generally. IWMI’s work is quoted regularly, not only in scientific circles but also in broader publications with significant influence.

 

IWMI's research over the last two decades has played a major role in making the case, especially to the traditional water engineering community, that the management of water, especially for agriculture, is as important as its development. While few people would dispute this today, in the 1980s this was not at all the conventional wisdom.

 

IWMI's admission to the CGIAR system and its increasing prominence and respectability within the group and beyond (including through the Challenge Programs) has helped make the case to the agricultural research community that research on the management of water for agriculture is not only a vital part of agricultural research, but it also provides new methodological approaches and insights that have helped advance agricultural research more generally.

David Seckler

Director General, IWMI (1995-2000), currently Director, Winrock Water

Extension, refinement, elaboration and promotion of the basin perspective in water resources. Of course IWMI did not discover basins or the limitations of classical irrigation efficiency concepts, but it did do a lot in the way of the above four words.

World Water Supply and Demand Projections. That study was a first and has been followed by many others, including the later IWMI work. It has had a large effect on getting the world to recognize the ongoing and worsening water crisis.

Promoting the use of remote sensing in analyzing irrigation systems. IWMI provided Wim Bastiansen with his first substantial opportunity to apply his theories and sponsored several large-scale tests for a technique that is now being used all over the world.

The work on the health effects of irrigation in terms of malaria control and use of wastewater in irrigation. I believe that this work started a very important movement of research and action around the world.