The Ganges Water Machine

The river Ganges and its tributaries, and the flat and fertile plain through which they flow, are one of earth's great natural resources. For thousands of years abundant water and generous land have provided the foundation for a highly developed civilization based on agriculture and for one of the world's largest concentrations of human populations. But farming is mainly traditional and at a subsistence level, with little surplus, and as a result the population has remained overwhelmingly rural and most people are desperately poor. Although irrigation from canals and wells has been practiced for millennia, chiefly as a protection against the uncertainties of the monsoon rains, the water resources are largely untapped; the small fraction of water used for irrigation is poorly managed and its productivity is low. Deeply embedded cultural, social, and economic problems inhibit modernization of agriculture and fuller utilization of the water resources. Capital investments and technological changes on a large scale are also required. As experience elsewhere shows, the introduction of technological changes on the required scale might break the chains of tradition and injustice that now bind the people in misery and poverty.