Petra Schmitter

Petra Schmitter, is a Senior Researcher at the International Water Management Institute and leads the Research Group on Sustainable and Resilient Food Production Systems. She has over 15 years of experience in developing suitable water solutions for smallholder farmers to improve their agricultural resilience and to assess the impact of scaling those solutions on water resource availability and quality at different scales. She leads research for development projects in SE Asia, West and East Africa in the field of farmer-led irrigation, water productivity, irrigation scheme modernization, land degradation and hydrological modelling. She enjoys evaluating suitable technologies with smallholder farmers, PhD and Msc. students and uses the field evidence to drive changes in policy and development programs. She holds an MSc. in Bio-Engineering in Environmental Technology from the K.U. Leuven (2004), an Msc. in Water Resources Engineering from the K.U.Leuven – V.U.B.(2005) and a PhD in Agricultural Science from the University of Hohenheim (2011) for which she received an Award for outstanding research. She has more than 25 peer reviewed publications and contributed to book chapters around climate smart solutions to improve agricultural production.