Hydraulic Engineering and Land Reclamation, Institute of

Hydraulic Engineering and Land Reclamation, Institute of 

(full name, A. N. Kostiakov All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Land Reclamation; VNIIGiM), founded in 1929 in Moscow, based on the State Institute of Agricultural Land Reclamation. In 1958 the institute was named for A. N. Kostiakov, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and academician of VASKhNII.

As of 1970 the institute had the following departments: irrigation; irrigation systems; drainage; agricultural water supply and flooding; hydraulic engineering construction, including laboratories for hydraulic engineering and fundamentals of hydraulic engineering construction; land reclamation mechanization, including a hydraulic mechanization laboratory; research into structures of land reclamation systems and working parts of reclamation machines; reclamation hydrogeology; construction research; economic research, including laboratories for irrigation economics, drainage economics, and engineering-economic research; mathematical methods and computer technology, including laboratories for hydraulic economy and hydrological calculations, mathematical research methods, computer technology, and automation of control systems; research coordination; and scientific-technological information. The following laboratories are also attached to the institute: soil reclamation, drainage and flushing of saline soils, measurement instruments, the Kharkov scientific research laboratories, and zonal experimental-reclamation stations in Smolensk (Smolensk station), L’govsk Raion (Kursk station), Riazan Oblast (Meshchera station in the village of Solotcha), Podol’ Raion of Moscow Oblast (the Povadino support point), and the city of Tiumen’ (the Western Siberian branch).

The institute carries on scientific research work on the irrigation of agricultural crops, drainage of swamps and boglands, agricultural water supply and flooding, mechanization of reclamation works, hydromechanization, methods of planning and constructing irrigation systems and hydraulic engineering structures, reclamation hydrogeology, prognosis of reclamation development and improvement of economic effectiveness of land reclamation, and mathematical methods of research using computers. The institute coordinates scientific research and scientific technical information in the area of reclamation. There are in-house and corresponding postgraduate students. Its scientific journal, Trudy (Proceedings), has been published since 1928.