University of Catania (UNICT, Italy)
Dipartimento di Agricoltura, Alimentazione e Ambiente (Di3A)
The University of Catania (UNICT) is an Italian public institution.
UNICT has 18 Departments and 2 Didactic Units that, additionally to assignments of scientific research, are in charge for the management of educational activities with more than 60,000 students and about 1,500 professors/researchers.
Within UNICT, the Dipartimento di Agricoltura, Alimentazione e Ambiente (Di3A) represents a multidisciplinary group of researchers mainly focusing on agricultural engineering, hydraulics and watershed protection, plant pathology, applied entomology, agri-food economics. The mission of Di3A is the improvement of education and research in agriculture, food production and sustainability and environment in the Mediterranean basin and educate future professionals who will enhance the knowledge and dissemination in those fields and will serve the needs of the society. The Department has several facilities and laboratories to sustain the research and teaching activities. The Academic and research staff of the Department attracts public funding from regional, national and international bodies. Moreover, the active relationship with the rural and industrial world is testified by the numerous contracts with national and international enterprises.
The research group on Hydraulics and Soil Conservation is active in education, applied research and technical assistance on integrated water resources management, highly innovative irrigation methods, water resources management, remote sensing in agriculture, micrometeorology, reservoir and watershed management and wastewater treatment and reuse in agriculture.
Di3A has the availability of several experimental facilities to carry out research on irrigation systems, micrometeorological mass and energy fluxes direct measurements.