The department comprises of three research divisions namely:

• Irrigation and Drainage Networks Engineering
• Modern Irrigation Systems Engineering
• Drainage and Environmental Engineering

Till now, the department mainly has focused on the research areas including: surface irrigation methods, pressurized irrigation methods, and research on water structures and irrigation and drainage networks. However, the goals and priorities of the department is broad and expands to  research areas on the subjects of methods to increase the efficiency of water consumption in agricultural and horticultural products, to determine the optimal irrigation amount for agricultural and horticultural products, research on various issues of drainage and land improvement, application of pressurized irrigation methods, agricultural and horticultural plants, irrigation management design, implementation and operation of surface and pressurized irrigation methods, precise and intelligent irrigation methods, study and evaluation of technical issues and managerial issues of irrigation and drainage networks, and use of unconventional waters (saline, drainage water and sewage) and related environmental issues in irrigation and drainage.

The followings are some major research priorities of the department:

• Improving agricultural water use efficiency (WUE) and water productivity (WP) of different crops under different irrigation systems,
• Improving irrigation efficiency of different irrigation systems,
• Improve traditional irrigation methods,
• Sustainable development of new irrigation methods,
• Improvement and optimization of irrigation and drainage networks,
• Sustainable use of water resources for irrigation and in agricultural production,
• Environmental issues in irrigation and drainage systems,
• Application of new technologies in irrigation and drainage engineering,
• Precise and intelligent irrigation,
• Impacts of drought and climate change in water use in agriculture,
• Modern irrigation technologies (Pressurized irrigation …),
• Policy and institutions aspects of optimal water use in agriculture.

The department has the specialized laboratories namely as follow:

• Irrigation and Drainage Engineering Research Laboratory
• Laboratory of Soil and Concrete Mechanics Research
• Laboratory of Water Chemistry- Soil-Sewage
• Hydraulic Laboratory
• Irrigation Equipment Manufacturing and Testing Laboratory
• Water Structures Tests and Calibrations Hydraulic Laboratory