Environmental Research Letters
PAPER • OPEN ACCESS
An interdisciplinary framework for using archaeology, history and
collective action to enhance India’s agricultural resilience and
sustainability
To cite this article: A S Green et al 2020 Environ. Res. Lett. 15 105021
 
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Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 105021 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aba780
Environmental Research Letters
PAPER
An interdisciplinary framework for using archaeology, history
OPEN ACCESS and collective action to enhance India’s agricultural resilience
RECEIVED
31 December 2019 and sustainability
REVISED
3 July 2020 ASGreen1, SDixit2, KKGarg3, NRSandya3, G Singh2, KVatta2, AMWhitbread3,MK Jones4,
ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION R N Singh5 and C A Petrie4
20 July 2020
1 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
PUBLISHED 2
13 October 2020 Centers for International Projects Trust, Delhi, India
3 International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, India
4 Department of Archaeology and McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Original content from 5 Banaras Hindu University, Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Varanasi, India
this work may be used
under the terms of the E-mail: ag952@cam.ac.uk
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Attribution 4.0 licence. Keywords: South Asia, water-management, agriculture, sustainability, collective action, heritage
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maintain attribution to
the author(s) and the title Abstract
of the work, journal
citation and DOI. South Asia has a deep history of agriculture that includes a range of past farming systems in
different climatic zones. Many of these farming systems were resilient to changes in climate and
sustainable over long periods of time. India’s present agricultural systems are facing serious
challenges, as they have become increasingly reliant on the unsustainable extraction of
groundwater for irrigation. This paper outlines an interdisciplinary framework for drawing on
patterns from the past to guide interventions in the present. It compares past and present strategies
for water management and use in semi-arid and temperate Punjab with equatorial Telangana.
Structural differences in water use in these two regions suggest that a range of interventions should
be adopted to expand the overall availability of surface water for agricultural systems in India, in
combination with empowering local communities to create their own water management rules.
Active interventions focus on the efficient use of water supplies, and increasing surface water
availability through renovation of collective ponds and reservoirs. We argue that this conceptual
framework has significant potential for guiding agronomic and economic interventions in the
future.
1. Introduction et al 2018, Sarkar 2020). In addition to generating
environmental challenges, the use of groundwater in
Water-stress is a global problem that is exacerbated agriculture has fueled disparities in regional devel-
by unsustainable irrigation practices. This problem opment (e.g. Pingali et al 2019). It has long been
is particularly acute in India, where water availabil- argued that South Asia’s past farming systems incor-
ity per person is low in some regions (e.g. Chellaney porated diverse cropping strategies (e.g. Petrie and
2011), but irrigated land area has increased substan- Bates 2017) and water management strategies (e.g.
tially since 1950 as part of the Green Revolution Bardhan 2000, 2001) that were more sustainable. The
(figure 1) (Shah 2009, Government of India 2013 goal of this paper is to present an interdisciplinary
irrigation). Increased irrigated land area was designed framework for using these patterns from the past to
to boost agricultural yields, but also required increas- offer insights into how interventions might increase
ing the number of bore wells that bring ground- sustainable water management in India today.
water from the aquifers into fields (e.g. Zaveri et al The deep history of agriculture in South Asia sug-
2016). This atomized water management strategy is gests that a range of water management strategies
nowused to grow thewater-intensive crops favored by were sustainable in the past. South Asian agriculture
state level policies, such as minimum support prices began more than 5000 years ago (e.g. Fuller 2006),
and irrigation subsidies, which over-exploits aquifers and since its beginning in periods long pre-dating
that are slow to recharge (Mishra et al 2018, Vatta written records, it has incorporated a wide array of
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd
Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 105021 A S Green et al
Figure 1. Source wise irrigated area between 1950 and 2012 in India (Government of India).
water management strategies (e.g. Miller 2015, 2006, interventions in the present, considering the implica-
Bauer and Morrison 2008, Morrison 2009). Most tions of contrasting past water management practices
focused on the use of surface water, derived primar- of different regions, past collectivewatermanagement
ily fromprecipitation that either charged hydrological strategies that have the potential to offer advantages
systems or filled open reservoirs such as ponds, lakes, over present atomized water management strategies;
or anthropogenic ‘tanks’ (Reddy et al 2018). This and local-level cooperation in water management
water was then used to grow a diverse range of crops. that have the potential to facilitate sustainable surface
The institutional arrangements, social relations, rules water use in both semi-arid/temperate and equatorial
and infrastructure of these past water management settings. We argue that to improve the long-term resi-
and use systems have the potential to inform con- lience and sustainability of Indian farming systems,
temporary agriculture. As such, water management we should aim to revive surface water supplies from
and use practices from the past comprise an under- the past, reduce demand on those water supplies,
explored heritage that can contribute to a sustainable and increase the efficiency of their use by empower-
future (e.g. Koohafkan and Altieri 2011,Winter 2013, ing their local management, monitoring, and
Harrison 2015, Harvey 2015). distribution.
2. An interdisciplinary framework for
looking to the past to enhance India’s 3. Dangers to the sustainability of India’s
agricultural resilience and sustainability agriculture
The deep past can be used to identify lessons for There are contradictions within India’s present agri-
interventions designed to increase the sustainability cultural system. South Asia is characterized by con-
of water management in Indian agriculture. Toward trasting climate zones, which have a profound impact
this end, the TIGR2ESS Project, a collaborative inter- on water availability during winter (rabi) and sum-
national agriculture project that seeks to improve mer (kharif ) growing seasons. Winter precipitation
water use and management in India’s changing mon- largely falls in the Himalayas, charging the hydrolo-
soon climate, has developed an interdisciplinary gical system of northern South Asia by filling its rivers
framework designed to connect patterns from the and watercourses. In contrast, the Indian summer
past with interventions in the present (figure 2). This monsoon increases the availability of precipitation
framework incorporates collective action theory (e.g. during the summer months, and falls across south,
Ostrom 1990), which considers how people engage in central and western India in addition to the Him-
the collective management of a common resource, to alayas. Different crops are appropriate in each season,
investigate the broader social and environmental con- and in the past it has often been possible to produce
texts of water management and use, asking at which multiple crops inside a single year (Devendra and
scale decisions are made. We also incorporate les- Thomas 2002, Petrie and Bates 2017). For example,
sons from long-term patterns of social and environ- wheat and barley thrive in the rabi season (around
mental sustainability in past water management. The October–March), and thus make the most of winter
resulting framework links patterns from the past to rains, and rice and millets are better suited to the
2
Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 105021 A S Green et al
Figure 2. Schematic of the proposed interdisciplinary framework for improving interventions by drawing upon patterns from the
past. The top register summarizes patterns from the past, which have been curtailed in recent decades by dangers to sustainability
contributing to increased groundwater depletion. These have been used to identify lessons from the past in the below register,
which can enhance interventions to bring about sustainable patterns for the future.
kharif season (around June–October). In the semi- The number of bore wells throughout India increased
arid and temperate zones that stretch across the from one million in 1960 to 20 million in 2009 and
northwestern part of India, winter rain was and annual groundwater withdrawal increased from 25
is the primary surface water source, which is dis- to 300 km3 (Shah 2009). Bore wells are generally
tributed widely via large-scale canal-based irrigation controlled by individual farmers, though they are
systems and sometimes stored in village ponds. In powered by electricity supplied and often subsidized
the equatorial zones that transverse the Indian pen- by state authorities.
insula eastward from the Western Ghats, reservoir In Punjab, the production of paddy rice uses
(tank-based) farming systems that rely onmonsoonal approximately 1500 mm of water (Vatta and Taneja
rains have beenmore important. Despite these differ- 2018), a significantly higher quantity than any altern-
ences in water management, thirsty and inundation- ative summer crop. To facilitate its growth, India has
dependent paddy rice, which has a water footprint made major public investments in large-scale water
2–3 times greater than other cereals (e.g. Bouman infrastructure, constructing multipurpose dams that
et al 2002, Yao et al 2017), is now the primary cer- increased canal-based irrigated area from 10 to 18
eal grown throughout India (figure 3). Paddy rice is million hectares by the 1990s (figure 4). The canals
often grown in addition to thirsty winter crops such were built before Indian independence to increase
as wheat, superseding more water efficient crops like the agricultural activity in the region, enhance pro-
millet and barley. The predominance of this form of ductivity and ensure viability of farming which was
water-intensive Indian agriculture increased consid- the livelihood of the majority of rural households
erably beginning in the 1960s, largely the result of (e.g. Bhattacharya 2019), and canal construction
the ‘Green Revolution’ (Nair and Singh 2016). These continued through the 1970s and 1980s as part of
practices were contingent on an increase in the num- the Green Revolution (e.g. Amrith 2018). These brick
ber of pump operated bore wells, which have now and canals are cleaned and maintained by state authorit-
partly overtaken canal and tank water management. ies, and form a vast network that consolidates water
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Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 105021 A S Green et al
Figure 3. Study states considered in the text and precipitation isohyets. Basemap from Natural Earth (naturalearthdata.com), and
precipitation data compiled from (Giesche et al 2019). Map prepared in QGIS 3.12 (www.qgis.org).
Figure 4. Farming systems found in South Asia’s contrasting Koppen-Geiger climate zones. Photos taken by Adam S Green in
2019. Basemap Data ©2020 Google and data from http://koeppen-geiger.vu-wien.acat.
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Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 105021 A S Green et al
from the Ghaggar, Yamuna, and Indus River tributar- needs of a specific crop and overdraws groundwa-
ies. Important examples in northwest India include ter. Although the state maintains high levels of wheat
the Indira Gandhi Canal and the Sharda Canal. and rice productivity, the consumption of water to
Canals have not been able to meet the water produce one kilogram of rice in Punjab is 5337 l as
demanded by paddy rice cultivation. In the states of compared to the all-India average of 3875 l (Ghu-
Haryana and Punjab, where canal irrigation is signi- man 2018). As a consequence, much of Punjab has
ficant, the area of canal irrigation is only between 29% been categorized as a ‘dark zone’, with over-exploited,
and 39% of total irrigated area (Government of India critical or semi-critical groundwater resources (Cent-
2018). Poor canal management has been a factor, and ral Ground Water Board 2019). While aquifer deple-
the shortfall in water availability has beenmade up by tion has not reached the same levels in Telangana,
increased small-scale private investments in drilling it is associated with similar challenges as in Pun-
and pumping technologies, and free or subsidized jab, and is reducing the base flow to defunct tank
energy since the 1990s has increased the extraction ecosystems.
of groundwater through wells (Singh 1962, Sarkar
and Das 2014, Vatta and Taneja 2018). The number 4. Developing lessons from the past
of tube wells in Punjab more than doubled between
1981 and 2016 (Ghuman 2018). These wells are now It is frequently argued that patterns from the past can
the main source of water for agriculture, an atomized inform the present (e.g. Kintigh et al 2014). This is
water management strategy that contrasts with his- particularly true with respect to the study of long-
toric collective surface-water management strategies term socio-environmental interaction in archaeology,
represented by canals and ponds (Zaveri et al 2016b). a subject that is most often oriented to identify-
In contrast with Punjab, the large-scale water ing what makes societies ‘resilient’ and ‘sustain-
infrastructure in the south Indian state of Telangana able’ (Miller 2011, Marston 2012, 2015, Lane 2015,
in equatorial India are reservoir-based irrigation sys- Hegmon 2017, Petrie et al 2017, Bradtmöller et al
tems, which account for 35.6% of the total area under 2017, van der Leeuw 2019, Green et al 2020). These
cultivation (Government of India 2018) (figure 5). concepts are often adapted from the general study
These reservoirs involve significant collective labor of social and ecological systems (e.g. Gunderson and
investment, and can measure hundreds of hectares in Holling 2002), with resilience referring to the capacity
area and provide water to farmers inmultiple villages. to adapt to change and sustainability referring to the
When water is plentiful, farmers prioritize rice, pro- degree to which things can continue without degrad-
ducingmultiple crops within a year by inundating the ing their underlying conditions. Comparing long-
fields closest to the tanks. Unfortunately, there is evid- term patterns in socio-environmental interaction can
ence that the performance of Telangana’s reservoirs reveal how societies increased their resilience and sus-
has been deteriorating, in part because of a decline in tainability (Petrie et al 2017, Green et al 2020). For
community participation in their management (Falk example,Marston (2012) has argued that village-level
et al 2019). The decrease in reservoir use may be due decisionmaking can lead tomore sustainable agricul-
to a range of factors including changes in land owner- ture than imperial-level decision making. Likewise,
ship patterns, caste, and class, and there are reports in the diversity of subsistence strategies and the dis-
other parts of India that the village institutions that tances across which agricultural communities inter-
had managed the tanks are no longer present (e.g. act shape a society’s long-term resilience and sustain-
Reyes-García et al 2011, Reddy et al 2018, Meter et al ability (Green et al 2020).
2016). As a result, decisions aboutwhen to open sluice Despite the growth of sustainability research
gates are made outside of farmer communities, often in archaeology, insights from archaeology rarely
by state-level departments of irrigation. As the avail- contribute to interdisciplinary discourses with
ability of surface water is outstripped by use, ground- agronomists and economists that consider resilience
water has been used tomake up the shortfall, and bore and sustainability and have the potential to influ-
wells are now the most utilized water source in Telan- ence agricultural and economic policy. Governments
gana, which has also impacted the capacity of existing and policy makers often struggle to see how a spe-
tanks, furthering the decline of tank management. cific lesson from the past might interact with policies
The prevalence of bore wells in both northw- in the present. This is a problem with how heritage
est and south India creates numerous environmental is perceived and valued—as while the past is often
problems. In northwest India, as the groundwater considered a resource that needs to be managed and
level decreases every year, the cost of re-boring and preserved, its role in assembling a just and sustainable
maintenance has increased (Vatta and Taneja 2018). future (e.g. Winter 2013, Harrison 2015, Rizvi 2018)
The consumption of electricity in agriculture, which is often overlooked. We argue that an interdisciplin-
is provided free to farmers by the state government ary framework that specifically connects a common
in Punjab, has increased nearly 70% between 1975 set of concepts that have the potential to distill les-
and 2016 (Ghuman 2018). As farmers are inclined sons from the past into policy objectives needs to be
to saturate their fields, water use often exceeds the articulated. Present farming systems often have roots
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Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 105021 A S Green et al
Figure 5. Canal in northwest India. Photo taken by Adam S. Green in 2019.
deep in the past, and this agricultural heritage has collective action. Resource importance, predictability
the potential to be a core component of the inter- and scarcity, the number of people involved, their
face between long-term trajectories of sustainability social and cultural diversity, the importance of the
and resilience and current agricultural practice (e.g. resource managed, the required contribution of each
Koohafkan and Altieri 2011). Agricultural heritage person, the temptation to free ride, collective bene-
can also include a diverse range of farming practices, fit, rule-making autonomy, and leadership all consti-
crop choices and approaches to water management tute important variables in studies of collective action
that were resilient and sustainable. Many of these (Ostrom 1990, p 148).
approaches have fallen out of use, but potentially Theories of collective action present a robust set
should be revisited. To ensure such approaches are of definable social variables and strong predictions
practicable, it is essential to characterize water man- about cooperation, and have been particularly use-
agement practices from the past using concepts and ful to archaeologists exploring the emergence of cer-
variables that can be applied to the present. Here, tain forms of social and political complexity without
theories of collective action are key. simplistic recourse to the agency of a hierarchical rul-
Theories of collective action focus on the con- ing elite (e.g. Blanton and Fargher 2008, Carballo
ditions under which people engage in and sustain 2013, Demarrais 2016, Halperin 2017, Feinman and
cooperation. Collective action is the joint endeavor Carballo 2018, Green 2020). Theories of collective
of many different people or social groups to gener- action thus offer an interdisciplinary link between
ate public goods or protect common resources (e.g. past societies and present context. Indeed, in his
Olson 1965, Ostrom 1990). Building a canal, digging foundational study of collective action in Indian irrig-
a reservoir, and distributing water across a network ation, Bardhan (2000, p 849) found that the per-
of fields are all examples of collective action. The core ceived age of a water management system was one
insight of collective action theory is that social groups of the strongest predictors of its sustainability. We
are more likely to cooperate if they create their own thus frame past water management practices in terms
rules, a finding that is partly based on field research of collective action, drawing on common factors and
of the cultural institutions underlying irrigation prac- variables found within past and present water man-
tices in India (e.g. Wade 1988). Reservoir manage- agement strategies, which should highlight ways that
ment in India thus forms the basis of theories of past practices can guide policies in the present.
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Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 105021 A S Green et al
5. Deep histories of water management 1931, Rao 1973, Jansen 1993, Bisht 2015). These
in northwest India and Telangana features incorporated the labor of many different
people toward a common goal, indicating collect-
The significance of archaeological and historical data ive action at the civic scale (Wright 2016, Green
for understanding South Asian agriculture in the 2018) with a conspicuous absence of top-down labor
present and future has not been recognized. This is management (Possehl 2002, Kenoyer 2008, Wright
partly because knowledge about the long-term tra- 2010, Vidale 2010, Petrie 2013, 2019, Green 2020).
jectories of South Asian agriculture is incomplete, Miller (2015) has also argued that the unpredictab-
with some contexts offering data sets that can be used ility of inundation in the Indus River Basin may have
to create well-developed narratives and others offer- required large-scale authorities to re-apportion land
ing only a basic outline. Two examples have partic- to farmers at relatively short notice. Thus, bottom-
ular potential to shape policy by generating agricul- up decision making and coordination among many
tural heritage—the water management systems of the different groups likely played a significant role in
Indus Civilization in northwest India, which com- the emergence of Indus cities. While these patterns
prises the earliest large-scale agricultural system in largely pertain to urban contexts, it is not unreason-
India’s semi-arid and temperate climate zone, and the able to infer that rural communities developed their
massive systemof reservoirs associatedwith themedi- own rules to manage and use local sources of sur-
eval Kakatiya Dynasty in south India. Both systems face water. The location of many rural settlements
made use of a diverse range of crops, many of which in proximity to watercourses and the prevalence of
are no longer cultivated. Indus water management wheat and barley suggest a preference for areas with
systems were the earliest to appear in the semi-arid some water capture potential (Miller 2006, 2015,
and temperate states of Punjab and Haryana, which Chakrabarti and Saini 2009, Chakrabarti 2014).How-
are also the states that played a central role in India’s ever, as Indus urbanization occurred in northwest
Green Revolution. The Kakatiya tank system remains India, numerous rural communities were located in
central to the modern dryland farming system of areas without obvious direct access to a watercourse
Telangana, and represents an explicit link between (Singh et al 2010, 2011, 2018, 2019, Petrie et al 2017,
present water management strategies and the medi- Green et al 2019). It is thus likely that in northwest
eval past. Comparing these examples of agricultural India, ancient settlement locations indicate the use
heritage yields insights into sustainable differences of a range of different surface water sources, includ-
in water management between semi-arid/temperate ing seasonal watercourses (Petrie et al 2017: Petrie
and equatorial regions, and the importance of local 2017, Petrie 2019). Moreover, evidence for many dif-
cooperation and collective action to the management ferent past watercourses is evident in the microtopo-
of surface water in both regions. graphy of the region, whichmay have included peren-
In northwest India, early agriculture supported nial and ephemeral watercourses (Orengo and Petrie
the emergence of South Asia’s earliest cities—those 2017). While agricultural activities based on winter
of the Indus Civilization (c. 2600–1900 BC). The rain gathered through the hydrological systems likely
Indus Civilization drew many communities of farm- have a long history in northwest India, they were from
ers and pastoralists into one of the world’s earliest the very beginning, augmented through the use of
urban economies (Wright 2010). Botanical data from other surface water sources, likely managed accord-
archaeological excavations indicate that Indus com- ing to local rules. The number of Indus settlements
munities relied on a range of crops, including wheat, increased in northwest India as urbanism declined by
barley, rice, millet and pulses (e.g. Weber 1999, Bates 1900 BC, suggesting that rural communities maxim-
2019). Indus villages were located in different envir- ized the use of different water sources (e.g. Petrie et al
onmental contexts within northwest India, and each 2017, Green et al 2020).
settlement has a different cropping pattern (Petrie Archaeological excavations suggest that the dry-
and Bates 2017, Petrie et al 2017). Thus, each com- land farming systems of South India have their roots
munity’s agriculture and cropping strategies appears in the Neolithic Period, when millets, pulses, and
to have been adapted to its local setting (Petrie and a range of other crops appear in archaeobotan-
Bates 2017, Petrie et al 2017), changing through time ical assemblages (Fuller 2006, Kingwell-Banham and
as settlement distributions suggests that Indus Civil- Fuller 2018). In Telangana, there is strong evidence
ization urbanized and de-urbanized (e.g. Green and that a large-scale dryland farming system was used
Petrie 2018). in its Medieval Period, and historical records sug-
There is little direct evidence of surface water gest millets, pulses and rice, all played important
management for agriculture in Indus communit- roles in the region’s farming (e.g. Mangalam 1986).
ies, though there is ample indirect evidence to sug- In the Vijayanagara Empire (AD 1336–1646), which
gest that a range of water management strategies was centered in neighboring Karnataka, rice became
would not have been beyond their capacities. Indus a centerpiece of elite cuisine that resulted in the pro-
cities incorporated sophisticated water technologies, gressive large-scale construction of the infrastructure
including wells and brick-lined tanks (e.g. Marshall necessary to produce it (Morrison 2014).
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Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 105021 A S Green et al
Figure 6. Historical ‘tank’ in Telangana. Photo taken by Adam S. Green.
Telangana’s network of tanks includes dams that Katakshapur tank (figure 8). Sluice gates at differ-
were constructed across slopes to collect and store ent heights connected to networks of ditches in
water by taking advantage of non-anthropogenic surrounding fields. Over the course of a growing sea-
topographic features and depressions. Many of these son, the sluice gates could be opened in sequence—
damswere established by the Kakatiya Dynasty (c.AD the higher sluice gate would provide water to a series
956–1323), who arose as military chiefs that initially of nearby fields, the next highest would water another
fought on behalf of either the Chalukya or Rashtrak- series of fields, and so on. So long as the sluice gates
uta Empires (Parabrahma Sastry 1978, Yazdani 2013). were de-silted and opened in the proper order at the
When the Kakatiyas formed their own polity, a suc- proper times, they provided an effective and efficient
cession of dynamic and energetic rulers integrated means of storing and distributing the water captured
increasing parts of Telanagana and the Andhra coast frommonsoon rains. Historically, the tank systemhas
into their territory. As in the later empires in neigh- been critical to the growth of agriculture inTelangana,
boring Karnataka (e.g. Morrison 2009), Kakatiya contributing to soil and water conservation, flood
ideology emphasized the construction and mainten- control, drought mitigation, livestock and domestic
ance of tanks. Constructing and de-silting tanks were uses, recharge of ground water, microclimates and
listed among the sevenmost virtuous deeds that could environmental protection. The circumstances that
be undertaken by a ruler on earth (Parabrahma Sastry have resulted in the tanks falling into disuse requires
1978), a tradition that persisted under later polit- further investigation, but as in other parts of India
ies (e.g. Morrison 2009). Whenever a new Kakatiya (e.g. Bardhan 2000), increased agricultural produc-
leader took power, she or he would begin the con- tion for the market and the imposition of state-level
struction of a new tank, making more land avail- water management rules have likely played a role.
able for farming. One such tank was constructed at
Bayyaram (figure 6), and has an epigraph (figure 7) 6. Using lessons from the past to enhance
stating that ‘excavating the big-tank …uplifted the agricultural interventions
earth, in other words placed the kingdom on firm
basis,’ (Parabrahma Sastry 1978, p 25). South Asia’s agricultural heritage provides clear les-
Surviving tanks are often located in the same sons for increasing sustainable surface water use. The
watershed, and it is possible that in the past the tanks trajectory of water management strategies in India’s
formed a network in which overflow from one tank semi-arid/temperate and equatorial zones reveals a
was tapped to fill downstream tanks. An example can long-term homogenization of agricultural practices
be seen in the arrangement of villages surrounding that contradicts the region’s socio-environmental
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Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 105021 A S Green et al
Figure 7. Bayyaram inscription in Telangana. Photo taken by Adam S. Green in 2019.
diversity (see figure 4). The increasing production contradiction. Though it has provided food and live-
of water-intensive rice in the face of limited sur- lihoods for millions, the rise of pumped groundwa-
face water availability in both parts of the country ter use has created serious environmental challenges,
is the fundamental challenge that emerges from this contributing to the depletion of aquifers, the excessive
9
Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 105021 A S Green et al
Figure 8.Watershed of Katakshapur tank in Telangana. Data from ICRISAT projected over Natural Earth (naturalearthdata.com),
Map Data ©2020 Google, ©2020 CNES/Airbus, ©2020 Maxar Technologies.
use of water, increases in air pollution, and crop in the capacity to produce a narrow range of staple
residue burning. While bore wells can empower the crops.
small-scale farmer, they do so at the cost of the com- Public investments can ensure surface water avail-
mons, providing relatively unrestricted use of a col- ability but, building on the lessons from the past,
lective water source in absence of coordination. we argue that sustainable water management also
To increase the resilience and sustainability requires the application of local knowledge through
of Indian agriculture, a dramatic shift away from coordination at local levels. In the Indus Civiliza-
groundwater overuse is essential. Reducing the use of tion, early water management likely involved the col-
water and energy, both of which are under extreme lective use of a variety of local water sources (Petrie
stress, in Indian agriculture has been identified as a et al 2017: Petrie 2017, 2019). In the Kakatiya polity,
key policy objective (Vatta and Tanjea 2018). Local the timing of sluicegate opening and the mainten-
rules, developed through increases in local-level col- ance of field canals appear to have relied on village-
lective action, have the potential to lead to the more level authorities. Both water management strategies
sustainable use of both. Large-scale public invest- took advantage of natural gradients in the local
ments are potentially critical, but should only be used landscape—in northwest India, water redirection and
to increase the availability of surface water. Archae- storage was probably minimal, while in Telangana,
ological and historical examples and modern col- tanks were positioned to draw water from extensive
lective action theory both suggest that the local level rain-fed catchments. Comparing the deep histories of
participatory governance by users results inmore sus- these systems suggests that the resilience and sustain-
tainable and equitable outcomes. The construction ability of both irrigated and dryland farming systems
of Kakatiya tanks is an ideal example of this kind of can be improved by building capacities for collective
arrangement. It is also likely that Indus communities action at both state and village-level scales.
also made public investments in water management. The final element of the framework involves
Large-scale investments may also have been necessary translating these lessons into positive changes in
tomaintain these gains in surface water availability, as Indian agricultural practices related to watermanage-
was seen in the ideological importance the Kakatiyas ment and use. There are clear ways that local know-
placed on tank management. These relatively costly ledge can be used to maximize the use of surface
investments may have yielded considerable increases water. Flexible capacities for small-scale collective
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Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 105021 A S Green et al
action can maximize the use of local knowledge 7. Conclusions
from dependent communities and maximize resili-
ence. This shift would involve developing interven- In this paper, we have presented an interdisciplinary
tions that renovate and improve historic water reser- framework that draws on patterns from the past to
voirs to increase surface water availability, empower guide interventions aimed to improve the sustainab-
farming communities to reduce groundwater use, and ility and resilience of India’s agriculture. Our frame-
increase their collective control over surface water work is derived from the deep history of agriculture
sources. in northwest India and Telangana, regions that have
Reducing water stress is also crucial. To achieve been home to a diverse range of sustainable water
the long-term sustainability of the water-energy- management strategies and cropping choices in the
agriculture nexus in India, efficient water use through past. In recent years, these patterns from the past have
new technologies and practices, crop change and been endangered by water-intensive rice and wheat
active participation of communities or user associ- monocropping, reservoir mismanagement, and the
ations in the management of water bodies (aspects increased use of bore wells, all of which are increas-
of which were prevalent in the past) are essen- ing the depletion of groundwater. However, an exam-
tial (Rao 2002). In Punjab, conservation agriculture ination of the archaeological and historical record
practices (e.g. direct seeded rice, mulching) have reveals a range of lessons (e.g. bottom-up manage-
been promoted as demand-reduction interventions ment strategies, top-down investments) that can be
(Mishra et al 2017). These interventions use exist- applied to strengthen different interventions (e.g.
ing water resources more efficiently by reducing non- community participation programs, state-sponsored
productive evaporation, utilizing residue moisture reservoir renovation). Undertaking these interven-
effectively, and enhances resource use efficiency (Das tions stands to decrease the threat of groundwater
et al 2020). Additional interventions such as digital depletion, and increase the resilience and sustainab-
soil moisture sensors, the promotion of short dur- ility of India’s agriculture.
ation varieties, crop diversification through redu-
cing market risk for alternative crops and community
participation for effective water management and Acknowledgments
farm decision making are already underway, and are
bridging the gap between demand and supply for The authors would like to thank Liang Emlyn Yang
irrigation water and achieve long-term sustainab- for inviting us to submit this paper, which originated
ility of natural resources (Kamraju and Anuradha, in discussions at the Socio-Environmental Dynam-
2017; Kakumanu et al 2019). In Telangana, climate ics over the Last 15,000 Years: The Creation of Land-
smart crops such as millets, pigeon pea and chickpea scapes VI workshop held at the Christian-Albrechts
were traditionally cultivated in uplands; and proper University of Kiel, Germany in 2019. We would also
maintenance of surface water tanks through desilt- like to thank the three anonymous reviewers whose
ing and collective action of the community at down- comments helped us improve the article. We would
stream ecosystem has been learnt through historical like to thank Banaras Hindu University for their
backstopping, and has been targeted under the recent ongoing collaboration on the archaeological com-
government policy and public welfare programs (e.g. ponents of the paper, and the Archaeological Sur-
Millets mission program; and Mission Kakatiya) vey of India for granting permission to carry out that
(Devakumar and Chhonkar 2013, Dasgupta 2017, work. This research was funded by the Global Chal-
Anitha et al 2019). If the monsoon is weak, farmers lenges Research Fund’s TIGR2ESS (Transforming
often leave the land fallow for half the year. This prac- India’s Green Revolution by Research and Empower-
tice wastes the residual moisture that remains in the ment for Sustainable food Supplies) Project, Bio-
soil after the kharif season, so encouraging farmers technology and Biological Sciences Research Coun-
to grow drought hardy, post rice crops (e.g. chick- cil Grant Numbers BB/P027970/1, and builds upon
peas, sorghum) helps use the region’s water more the TwoRains project, which is funded by European
efficiently. In Telangana, agronomic interventions are Research Council under the European Union’s Hori-
underway and the state is aiming to meet their food zon 2020 research and innovation program, grant
and fodder needs through promoting climate smart agreement no. 648609. It builds upon the work of the
crops through various government schemes andmar- Land, Water and Settlement project, which received
keting mechanisms (Parasar and Bhavani 2018). If support fromDST/UKIERI, the British Academy and
these interventions in water demandmanagement are the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research,
coupled with programs to empower farming com- and makes use of data collected by colleagues who
munities to take collective control over surface water have worked with us, beside us and before and after
sources and stabilize surface and ground water sup- us in many areas. The ICRISAT authors acknowledge
ply, India has the potential to make transformations salary support from the CGIAR Research Program
in the present that are deeply rooted in an awareness Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) which is carried
of sustainable past practices. out with support from the CGIAR Trust Fund and
11
Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 105021 A S Green et al
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https://wle.cgiar.org/donors. River and Notes on the Archaeological Geography of Haryana
and Indian Panjab (New Delhi: Aryan Books International)
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from All the Development Blocks of the Punjab (New Delhi:
ORCID iDs Center for International Projects Trust (CIPT))
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