The MTD was first published in English and French languages in 1967 as a hardcopy version. In 1996, the Dictionary was thoroughly revised and a new hardcopy version of this second edition was published. Thereafter it was decided to bring out the next revised edition of the MTD on CD-ROM which was published in 2000. With updated software and more option facilities, the 4th edition of the MTD (English-French) was brought out on CD-Rom in 2002.

Soon after the first edition of the MTD was published in 1967, the National Committees of ICID world over felt the need to translate this useful dictionary into their own local languages also for the benefit of their national professionals working in that language. This was primarily the objective of naming the dictionary as 'multilingual'. Thus, with the commendable efforts of the ICID National Committees, the MTD has been translated so far in 14 languages in the past, besides English and French. These national versions of the MTD were initially translated based on the first edition published in 1967. Some of the National Committees later also brought out their next translated editions in local languages based on the 1996 edition of the MTD and others revised them from the 2002 version of the English-French MTD. Thus, the terms contained in the national versions of the Dictionary translated in the local languages of the countries may not be identical or have exact (one-to-one) correspondence with those in the English-French MTD that has been revised more frequently.

With the present 5th revised and updated edition of the MTD on CD-ROM, we have great pleasure to add 3 additional languages, viz., Chinese, Russian and Japanese together with English and French. As mentioned above, while the English and French terms have exact correspondence term by term, the others do not have this, having been translated from different editions of the MTD. The Central Office has by itself tried to organize the Chinese and Russian terms and definitions in the desired format to be able to bring them on this CD-Rom, despite the fact that it is not conversant with these languages. A likelihood of some error creeping in due to this is not ruled out. The aim has been to attempt a dictionary that is multilingual, despite odds. A facility exists whereby the errors may be corrected through web. The Japanese National Committee also worked hard to provide us the terms and definitions in Japanese language in the format required and we are happy to include the same on this platform. We hope to add the Indian versions in Hindi and Marathi languages also in the near future.

Over the years the science, art and technology in the field of irrigation and drainage have undergone significant innovation, refinement and in some cases, changes. Additionally, new challenges such as climate change have surfaced during the past few years. These have a great bearing on the contents of the dictionary on irrigation and drainage. With the new challenges there appeared some new terminology in some areas, while some terms and definitions hitherto used became rather obsolete. The Working Group on Dictionary had the mandate to identify suitable experts who will be willing to undertake the work of going through the 2002 version of the Dictionary and suggesting modification, deletion or addition of the technical terms and their definitions in the context of their present day usage as relevant to the discipline of irrigation drainage, flood management and allied subjects. The WG was able to identify reviewers for 22 chapters out of 25, which have been now revised, while the remaining 3 chapters will be revised in the next version.