The Department of Irrigation and Water Management started functioning under the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Technology in 1964. The department was opened to meet the growing need of specialists in the field of irrigation and water management for boosting up agricultural production in the country. Over the last three decades the department has strengthened and widened its research capacity through recruiting qualified faculty members, conducting research in collaborations with national and international peers, and updating course curriculum in order to produce graduates capable of solving not only water problems in national contexts but also in international contexts. With offering about 40 undergraduate courses and 25 post-graduate courses, the department encompasses a broad arena of water science and engineering while agricultural water management (e.g. irrigation, drainage, hydrology, water quality and pollution, water conservation) has always been the forefront of its mission and vision. In face of changing climate and sustainability issues, the department has engaged in developing and facilitating various water management techniques to cope with extreme environments (drought and floods), to better utilize renewable energy in irrigation, and to reduce environmental degradation due to point and non-point pollution.

In addition to teachers’ own lab, the department has four common labs namely Hydraulic Lab, Soil Water Lab, Water Modelling Lab and Field Irrigation Lab. These labs are equipped with various state-of-the-art instruments. The water modelling lab is a computer cluster with different software used in surface water and groundwater modelling, crop modelling, and GIS applications. Being an active member in various Government organizations, the department has been contributing in formulating water management policies.