CAS 1 - Topic 5: Water Management

Professor of Natural Resources Management, Bern University of Applied Sciences

Scientific background and interests: Already during my education in agricultural sciences at ETHZ I was very interested in agriculture in the South. Through PhD and PostDoc, I started to focus on agriculture and water, with water use efficiency as a main topic. I then worked at CGIAR international agricultural research centers, first at ICRISAT (the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) in Niger, mainly in the domain of Agroforestry, and then as Soil-Water-Plant Relations specialist at ICARDA (the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas). Based in Syria, I worked all over the arid regions from North Africa to the Middle East and Central Asia, integrating technical and socio-economic approaches to improved water productivity in rainfed and irrigated agriculture.

For more than twenty years I have now been working at BFH-HAFL (Bern University of Applied Sciences ǀ School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences), teaching and supervising theses in the fields of sustainable and productive use of natural resources (especially through agriculture) and rural development, often with emphasis on drylands and always with a holistic view. In addition, I plan, support and evaluate as an expert diverse projects in international cooperation, mainly in Africa, but also in Asia, with a particular focus on novel ways to enhancing the adoption of solutions to prevailing challenges. Smaller and larger research projects complete my international work and allow me, together with my consultancies, to bring the reality of the field to the students in the classroom.

Webpage: https://www.bfh.ch/fr/la-bfh/personnes/b6aup6rjeoyf/