Letters from Sri Lanka The Worlds Largest Water Harvesting Earthworks Project

Posted August 10, 2009 by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor & filed under Irrigation, Regional Water Cycle, Water Conservation, Water Harvesting.

A mahout and his elephant (the elephant is the one on the left) Photos Copyright Craig Mackintosh Preamble: Okay, the elephant has nothing to do with the story below (except that its also large in scale), but it is an appropriate way to let you all know of my whereabouts, and to explain my lack of posting of late (and its a great way to get your attention). Im currently in Sri Lanka working on the Sustainable (R)evolution book project we told you about a little while back. I leave the country in a few days, heading to Ladakh, but over the next
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weeks, as I have time, expect several posts on different elements of this country that should interest you. First up Ill post on an earthworks site I visited today. Permaculture earthworks projects for supplying water and rehydrating the landscape are, generally, supposed to be small scale by nature. And, also in the spirit of Permaculture, theyre (ideally) done with voluntary, community/collective labour where possible. What Im going to describe below fits into neither category. Let not even a drop of rain water go to the sea without benefiting man Parakrama Bahu the Great, King of Sri Lanka, 11531186 AD The quote above a highly valid argument for Permaculture engineers by the way sets the scene for this story. King Parakrama Bahu is credited with being the greatest water harvesting earthworks engineer of all time. Is it believed that during the 12th century he constructed or restored: 165 dam walls, 3910 canals, 163 major and 2376 minor reservoirs (or tanks, as theyre known here) and 328 stone sluices. He also repaired 1,969 embankment breaches. This is all no mean feat considering his reign only lasted 33 years and considering the size of the dam walls themselves.

An ancient dam wall/embankment at Anuradhapura forms a reservoir behind it. This is a medium sized dam, with a catchment area of 32.5 square miles (84 square kms) Of course, he didnt do this single-handedly. History books indicate that forced labour was his earthmoving equipment of choice. Putting the ethics of this behind us though, these earthworks transformed the country into the granary of the Orient enabling the early Sinhalese to grow rice (and other crops) across the large flatlands of the island state. I say early Sengalese, because our ambitious king, although the most famous hydrologist, was actually only one of a long line of Sri Lankan dam and canal builders the earliest of who dates back as far as the fourth century BC. Originally devoid of natural lakes, century upon century of work in Sri Lanka has seen hundreds of large and thousands of smaller dams pepper the landscape. The work was meticulous in its detail. For example the thousands of miles of canals were designed so precisely as to descend at a steady rate of less than 20 centimeters per kilometer (or less than a foot per mile), with individual canals reaching up to 80 kilometers (or 50 miles) in length. And some of the reservoirs, like the one Ive photographed for this post, also had an overflow spillway as a feature, ensuring that if a particularly strong wet season did its worst, the water would outflow passively without breaching the restraining wall. Im told that originally all the dams were filled through rainwater harvesting only, although over the course of time stream and river diversions played a considerable role in feeding the system as well.

A sluice at the Anuradhapura reservoir As fascinating as all this is, it gets even more so since much of the ancient system is still in use right now helping make todays Sri Lanka the largely food-self-sufficient country it is, on land that would otherwise be predominantly bone dry. The sluice above and below is ancient in placement, but
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modern in its restoration with concrete walls and an iron sluice gate.

The shot below progresses this photo series to show the other side of the dam wall where the open sluice allows water to flow into the adjacent region.

Water exits the reservoir, or tank, via a sluice through the dam wall (right) and begins its life-giving journey across the countryside (left) From here the canal winds through the countryside, with the man-made tributaries branching off into smaller and smaller lines along the way, some of which are controlled by minor sluice gates, with the precious cargo finally reaching rice farmers across the area. While todays legislation demands that water diverted to your property only be used for rice paddies, in real terms the water ultimately gets used for a lot more. Let me explain: todays canals are fully concrete lined, but only initially. As the water enters smaller offshoots, they become concrete sided only (i.e. no seal on the bottom). This means water seeps into the ground to lift the water table recharging the many thousands of wells across the countryside.

An end-of-the-line category channel, showing an officially controlled, slightly ajar mini-sluice at right. This will divert waterflow into an individual
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farmers paddy field when its his turn at least. Given the extreme nature of water flows in this region monsoon rains in the wet season, followed by extended dry periods this massive water harvesting network was a highly appropriate investment for Sri Lanka. And, as it turned out, a very long term one at that! The many thousands of streams flowing out of these vast reservoirs not only supply a large population with their staple, but also allow countless trees of every kind imaginable to get to work in shading and feeding people, slowing evaporation, and providing habitat for Sri Lankas rich biodiversity.

Rice harvested as egret supervises Not all was perfect with the ancient system though. The large scale, centralised nature of the system did backfire at one point when a major but natural change in the course of the Mahaweli Ganga river in the thirteenth century completely undermined a large part of the network. The fall of the ancient hydraulic civilisation of Sri Lanka in the 13th century was due to sudden Natural Cataclysmic change of the river course of the Mahaveli Ganga and was not due to foreign invasions as historians would want us to believe. The scientific evidence is clearly seen in the aerial photographs of the old course of the Mahaveli Ganga and its new river course. This sudden geological catyclysm that changed the river course that sustained our ancient hydraulic civilization, led to disease and famine. This resulted in the major part of the population to abandon these areas and move to the Wet and Intermediate Zones. A. Denis N. Fernando, Fellow National Academy of Sciences The moral of the story? Keep it small, keep it ethical, but do make sure not a drop reaches the ocean without benefiting the land, and the men and creatures on it. Follow up with: Letters from Sri Lanka Greywater Recycling at Kuttam Pokuna (the Twin Pools) Letters from Sri Lanka Series

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8 Responses to Letters from Sri Lanka The Worlds Largest Water Harvesting Earthworks Project
Eernest Truman
Very Interesting! It always strikes us as exciting and wonderful that it is these off the beaten path places that are taking permaculture systems to new levels of engagement. This book will be a great asset to our global community. We all should try to document and convey our own works throughout the world, each project is a reservoir of wealth that will help us grow in knowledge and expand our ability to communicate the site specific relevancy to new interested people. Keep up the great work Mr. Mackintosh and get home safely! Fraternally, Ernest
August 10th, 2009 Reply

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Tim Auld
Fascinating! Its great to see permaculture techniques and principles vindicated so thoroughly. It can be done with ancient tools and slave labor therefore we can do it with earth movers before fuel becomes scarce. I recommend having a browse of Sri Lanka on google maps to see how large these reservoirs and canal networks are. Very impressive!
August 10th, 2009 Reply

Bernado Soares
What a wonderful story,thankyou for the insight Craig.I would like to second you Ernest,it will truly be a humbling and beautiful book and a real treasure.Best wishes Mr Mackintosh looking forward to the next chapters. BS
August 10th, 2009 Reply

jeff
Great update, thanks Craig. Imagine what we could do now if our governments actually cared for the welfare of their people to the same degree now? (forced labour aside of course). Imagine if Kevin Rudd had the guts to start a 300 year project to sustainably green our deserts? Arent we infrastructure building our way out of a recession? how about some decent, long term, well thought out solutions to real (eternal) human needs rather than another expressway? Lets think, Sri Lanka, 21 centuries ago, bone dry. Australia, now, mostly bone dry. Looks like we are a bit slow on the uptake.
August 12th, 2009 Reply

fernando pessoa
It would be great to think,that Government could form this partnership with its constituents its unlikely. B.C.M has been telling them about the salt in the Murry since the salt watch issue in the PIJ and probably before.Many years later we address the catastrophe.Maybe if we all start our own continuos swale dam system it will get done,power to the people. Regards fernando
August 19th, 2009 Reply

Susil
Dear Sir this is a great article Craig.Would you give me permission to post this in my website? Please.. Thanks
January 16th, 2010 Reply

Craig Mackintosh
Hi Susil. Youre welcome to put the first two or three paragraphs on your site, and then link to this page for readers to read the rest. Sorry, but you cannot post the entire post elsewhere.
January 16th, 2010 Reply

chris tilaka-sri dharmakirti

We take this for granted in Sri Lanka..but the sad fact is the soils are dead around these vast reservoirs..as the farmers have poisoned the soils and killed all the microorganisms with pesticides and weedicides and so the soil is no longer capable of holding water as there is no living organisms to retain the moisture. So the water that comes down for irrigation just disappears through the soils and thus the quantum of water needed to irrigate land is much more than before..and so it is time to rebuild the quality of our soils to take advantage of this vast rainwater harvesting system our ancestors built. Wake up Sri Lanka.
February 5th, 2013 Reply

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