Colorado State University Civil Engineering Professor Honored with National Award for Work on Worldwide Irrigation Water Management

Note to Editors: A photo of Professor Wayne Clyma is available with the news release at http://www.newsinfo.colostate.edu/.

Wayne Clyma, professor emeritus of civil engineering at Colorado State University, has been honored with the 2009 Kishida International Award by The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers.

The award recognizes Clyma’s interdisciplinary approaches in the improvement of worldwide irrigation water management through teaching, research and consulting.

The Kishida International Award is funded by the publishing company Shin-Norinsha Co., Ltd. of Japan in honor of Yoshikuni Kishida, founder of the firm. The award serves to recognize outstanding contributions to engineering mechanization-technological related programs of education, research, developments, consultation, or technology transfer outside the United States.

Clyma received the award – with $1,000 – at the ASABE Annual International Meeting on June 24 in Reno, Nev.

Clyma helped government organizations worldwide improve irrigation techniques and create water management programs, so they could work together and be more effective in serving the farming community.

He has worked to create a farm-water management program that improved watercourses, precision land leveling, and crop production in Pakistan, and has also helped design water management programs that led to increased crop yields and improved water management in Egypt. He also helped the U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory in Phoenix implement a Management Improvement Program (MIP) for an Arizona irrigation district. The Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Foundation selected the Arizona MIP as one of four best projects in the USA in serving their clients’ (farmers) needs for 1997.

The Egyptian government honored him and another CSU colleague in 1999 as part of the 25th anniversary of the Egyptian National Water Center – a project that he helped guide. Work in Egypt involved a field team of agronomists, economists, engineers and sociologists working with Egyptian professionals and farmers to change water management in that country. He also received the Government of Pakistan Gold Medal Award for his meritorious service in water management.

Clyma first joined Colorado State in 1971; he retired in 1999. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Oklahoma State University and his doctoral degree from the University of Arizona.

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