eWater: an e-learning training tutorial in water management for rice production

By 2025, many rice-growing areas will become physically or economically water-scarce. Water-saving technologies were developed to help rice farmers. Save water and cope with water scarcity. We have been promoting these technologies to rice farmers in Asia since 2002 through field demonstrations, exchange visits, conference, trainings, and development of extension materials. To sustain capacity building for effective delivery of information to stakeholders, the Water-Saving Workgroup of the Irrigated Rice Research Consortium (IRRC) of IRRI, the NARES partners, and the University of the Southeastern Philippines-Mindanao e-learning Space (USEP-MiSpace) conceptualized on e-learning tutorial to effectively deliver information on water-saving technologies. eWater Management or simply eWater is an e-learning tutorial that aims to help extension workers convey the different water-saving technologies to other extension workers, technicians, and farmers. It provides practical techniques on managing and saving water to increase productivity in irrigated rice production. eWater is structured in four interactive modules. Module 1 is composed of seven lessons that enable learners to understand rice environments, global rice water use, causes of water scarcity in rice-growing areas, and water balance and concepts of water productivity. Module 2 describes the functions of the soil in relation to water and to crop growth. Module 3 discusses sound field water management and ways of coping with water scarcity. Here, options to help farmers efficiently manage and save irrigation water and cope with water scarcity at the field level are presented. Module 4 consists of detailed discussions on alternate wetting and drying (AWD) technology as the main water-saving technology in irrigated areas. The program includes a course summary, Powerpoint presentations, videos and links to other resources to help extension workers prepare presentations to train other technicians and farmers. eWater is already on-line and is available in CD. The CDs have been already distributed to stakeholders in the Philippines and other Asian countries.