Feature
pubs.acs.org/est
Monsoon Harvests: The Living Legacies of Rainwater Harvesting
Systems in South India
Kimberly J. Van Meter,† Nandita B. Basu,*,†,‡ Eric Tate,§ and Joseph Wyckoff§
†
University of Waterloo, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada
‡
University of Waterloo, Department of Civil Engineering, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada
§
University of Iowa, Department of Geography, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, United States
Rainwater harvesting, a “soft path” approach toward water
management, is increasingly recognized as a key strategy toward
ensuring food security and alleviating problems of water
scarcity. Interestingly this “modern” approach has been in use
for millennia in numerous older civilizations. This article uses
India as a case study to explore the social, economic, and
environmental dimensions of agricultural rainwater harvesting
ponds, and evaluates the viability of these centuries-old systems
under current climate and population pressures. A holistic
watershed-scale approach that accounts for trade-offs in water
availability and socioeconomic wellbeing is recommended for
assessing the sustainability of these systems.
1. INTRODUCTION
Lack of consistent water availability for irrigated agriculture is necessary to meet Millennium Development Goals,20 and there
now recognized as one of the primary constraints to meeting
UN Millennium Development Goals to alleviate hunger, and
multiple studies indicate that by 2025 all countries will face
some form of water stress.1,2 Water shortages promise to
become more acute as population pressures increase, with
current projections indicating a 21% increase in global water
consumption for grain production by 2050. Particularly in
3,4
semiarid landscapes with high seasonal rainfall variability,
significant correlations have been found between a lack of
surface water storage, reduced food security and poor economic
development. 5−7
To meet the demand for seasonal water storage, village-level
rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems have been in use in India
for millennia. In the agricultural areas of South India, where we social and economic benefits will accrue at the village scale as
focus our study, these structures have commonly taken the
form of large (20−40 ha) earthen impoundments, referred to as
“tanks,” that can collect water during the monsoon season,
making surface water stores available to farmers for irrigation.
Although the use of RWH systems began to decline in India
with the building of large-scale irrigation structures under
British colonial rule and with the groundwater pumping boom
© 2014 American Chemical Society 4217
of the 20th century,8 it is currently experiencing a revival.
Organizations ranging from small nongovernmental organiza-
tions (NGOs) to the World Bank are now heavily investing in
the renovation of these small-scale water-storage structures in
the pursuit of increased water availability and more sustainable
livelihoods.9,10 RWH in India is estimated to have the potential
to add as much as 125 km3/year to the current water supply,
making it central to many plans to meet the country’s projected
midcentury water shortfall of over 300 km3/year.11 Indeed, in
2005 India revealed its Groundwater Recharge Master Plan,
which called for the renovation or new construction of a variety
of RWH structures, including the village tanks of South India,
at a cost of approximately $6 billion.12
Many researchers and development professionals now
suggest that small-scale water solutions are the most cost-
effective, efficient, and environmentally neutral means of
meeting demand in water-stressed regions. 13−15 These
solutions fall under the rubric of the "soft path" approach to
water management, in which existing large-scale projects are
complemented by small-scale, decentralized solutions.16 Ini-
tiatives including such soft-path approaches extend beyond
India, with the revival of traditional RWH systems from China
to the Middle East,17,18 and the transfer of RWH technologies
to water-stressed areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa with no long-
term history of RWH.19 Numerous international forums have
identified RWH as an integral component in interventions
has been widespread adoption of RWH systems for
supplemental irrigation in semiarid areas of Kenya, Ethiopia,
and Ghana, to name only a few.19,21 Even in the U.S. there has
been growing interest in the use of RWH for a range of
purposes, from reducing stormwater runoff and preventing
watershed pollution,22 to augmenting water supply during
drought years.23
Although stories abound in India of successful renovations of
RWH ponds, with whole villages reportedly being revitalized
after years of extreme water stress, the extent to which this
centuries-old technology can fundamentally address problems
of water scarcity has been called into question.9 The
assumption of those funding the renovation seems to be that
overall water availability increases.24 But can RWH truly
increase water availability at the basin scale? In the face of
climate change and population pressures, does utilization of
these ancient technologies represent the best path toward
solving problems of water scarcity?
Published: February 27, 2014
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Environmental Science & Technology
Figure 1. Components of rainwater harvesting systems in Tamil Nadu: (A) tank sluice at low water levels; (B) irrigated fields in tank command area;
(C) open well in tank command area with electric pump set; (D) community well next to large tank at high water levels; (E) statues of Hindu deities
on tank bund, protecting the tank; (F) goats grazing near dead storage area of tank; (H) tank systems, as seen via the remote sensing image, are
ubiquitous throughout the state.
Our objective herein is to explore the extent to which ancient
RWH practices are applicable in the context of modern
socioeconomic and environmental pressures. We use the South
Indian state of Tamil Nadu, with its long history of RWH, as an
example to address broader issues regarding the sustainability of
RWH practices, not just in rapidly developing India, but also in
other water-scarce areas of the world. In particular, we explore
the ways in which RWH may impact basin-level water stores
and fluxes, and how these impacts may contribute to shaping
the socioeconomic landscape within a closely coupled human
and natural system.
2. SOUTH INDIA’S RWH SYSTEMS: STRUCTURE AND
FUNCTION
The RWH “tanks” of South India are formed via the
construction of earthen banks, or bunds, across natural
depressions in the landscape to impound surface runoff
(Figures 1 and 2). During monsoon rains, runoff from the
tank catchment area inundates the tank bed. Sluices are
constructed in the tank bund, each with a shutter that can be
controlled to manage the outflow of water from the tank into
irrigation channels (Figure 1a) that route water to downstream
agricultural fields (Figure 1b), where wells may also be present
to supplement tank irrigation (Figure 1c, d). Tanks are often
linked in cascades (Figure 1g, Figure 2), with overflow from
upstream tanks spilling over into surplus channels leading to
downstream tanks or nearby waterways. The tank cascades,
which can encompass anywhere from several to more than a
hundred tanks, create a hydrological network across the
landscape, providing points of connection not just between
individual tanks, but also small farm ponds, wells, and rivers.
The tank irrigation systems of Tamil Nadu support an
agricultural area covering 61% of the state,25 and allow for the
growth of subsistence crops like rice, as well as market crops
such as maize, sugar cane, and chili peppers. The functionality
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of the tanks, however, is considered to extend well beyond that
of a water source for agriculture. They are essentially human-
built ecosystems, providing economic, socio-cultural, and
ecological services to their communities. Ecologically, these
tank systems make up an extensive, interconnected web of
manmade wetlands providing a broad range of ecosystem
services, including flood control, nutrient and waste removal,
provision of avian habitat, and increased biodiversity of flora
and fauna. In Tamil Nadu alone, there are more than 39 000
tanks supporting wetland biodiversity and adding significantly
to the country’s wetland wealth.26 Tanks also enhance
groundwater recharge and increase stream baseflow,27 helping
to revive rivers that have been depleted by large-scale diversions
for canal irrigation and other uses.
Historically, tanks were central to settlement patterns in
South India: settlements grew up around temples, and over
time temples and tanks became nearly inseparable.28 In villages,
temples are often built directly into tank bunds, with statues of
the deities positioned nearby to protect the tanks from harm
(Figure 1e). The tanks also provide social gathering places29
and in many cases are considered sacred spaces, with traditional
rituals such as Hindu weddings and burial ceremonies taking
place there.30 In daily village life, tanks continue to have
multiple uses, providing water for drinking and the laundering
of clothes, a grazing area for livestock (Figure 1f), trees for fuel
wood, and silt to be used as a fertilizer.31,32 The varied uses of
the tanks serve to strengthen the economic base of surrounding
communities,33 with per capita incomes in some areas
increasing more than 50% after tank rehabilitation projects. 34
Conversely, tank decline has been found to result in reduced
incomes, with these reductions being borne disproportionately
by marginalized members of the community.35
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Figure 2. Major elements of a typical tank irrigation system are shown, note the horseshoe shape of the bund and the water pooling behind it.
3. LIVING LEGACIES: HISTORY AND CURRENT STATE
OF RAINWATER HARVESTING SYSTEMS IN TAMIL
NADU
The ancient RWH structures of South India have persisted,
essentially unmodified, into the present day, making them living
legacies of early farmers’ triumphs over the harsh, semiarid
environment. Evidence of tank irrigation in Tamil Nadu dates
back to the Sangam period of 150 BC to 200 AD,36 and by the
early medieval period (750−1300), tank irrigation was thriving
throughout the region. Archaeological and historical records
indicate a correlation between periods of prolonged drought
and developments in RWH practices.37 For example, after a
period of many severe monsoon failures from AD 505−550 was
written the Brihat Samhita, an encyclopedic work providing
extensive advice regarding the construction of tanks.
The historic reliance on tank irrigation systems in Tamil
Nadu began to wane during India’s colonial era (1757−1947),
and then declined even further in the late 1960s with the advent
of the Green Revolution.38 The British focused on large-scale
irrigation projects such as the construction of large dams and
canal networks, often at the expense of village-based tank
systems.8 The Green Revolution, accompanied by the increased
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availability of diesel and electric pumpset technology and rural
electrification,33,39 led to dramatic increases in the number of
irrigation wells in Tamil Nadu, from an estimated 50 000 in
1905 to a documented 229 394 in 1971.40 The increased access
to irrigation water has been a boon to economic development
and agricultural productivity in India, with yields 1.2−3 times
greater in areas irrigated by groundwater.41 However, increased
groundwater use has also led to alarming levels of groundwater
depletion (Figure 3a).42,43 In Tamil Nadu, recent estimates by
the government Central Ground Water Board suggest that
more than a third of Tamil Nadu’s groundwater resources are
overexploited,44 with the annual groundwater draft exceeding
the mean annual recharge (Figure 3b). Of the estimated 1.8
million groundwater wells in Tamil Nadu, approximately 12%
are dried up or abandoned due to overexploitation, and in some
areas well failure rates are greater than 40%.45,46
In response to these changes, the area irrigated by tanks has
continued to decline, from an estimated 900 000 ha down to
500 000 ha (Figure 3c) over the last 40 years.47 The increased
reliance on groundwater has led to a frequent neglect of
traditional water governance organizations, and thus to declines
in tank maintenance. Many tanks have succumbed to structural
failures and the encroachment of fields into tank beds,33 leading
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Figure 3. Groundwater withdrawals are shown as a percentage of recharge (a) across India (based on state-level estimates from the Indian
Ministry of Water Resources)43 and (b) in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu (based on (district-level estimates from the Tamil Nadu Central
Ground Water Board).44 Figure 1 (c) shows the percentages of land irrigated by tanks and wells in relation to the total irrigated area, 3,4 with
canals and rivers accounting as additional irrigation sources. Note that the high levels of depletion within the state are a result of the expansion of
well irrigation, at the expense of traditional tank systems over the last 50 years.

to even less community-level investment in the tank systems
and an overall devaluing of the commons resource. The decline
in tank irrigation paired with virtually uncontrolled ground-
water depletion has led to a complex series of negative
environmental and socio-economic feedbacks, particularly for
poor and marginal farmers, for whom loss of groundwater
resources has been directly correlated to a loss in food
security.42,48 While wealthier farmers may be able to afford the
costs associated with ever-deeper wells, the poorest farmers,
without access to groundwater and with decreasing availability
of tank irrigation water, may be unable to grow rice, the region’s
water-thirsty staple food crop. As a result, many may be forced
to leave their land fallow and migrate to nearby urban centers,
leaving the sustainability of the village in doubt.49 With short-
term migration being a common adaptive response to water
scarcity, long-term shifts in water availability due to ground-
water depletion can lead to a decline in economic prospects and
growing social instability at a regional scale.50
4. RAINWATER HARVESTING AND THE WATER
PORTRAIT
In the 12th century, King Parakramabahu of Sri Lanka, who
oversaw the building of a massive network of rainwater
harvesting reservoirs, famously proclaimed “Let no drop of
water flow to the sea unused by man.”51 Such a strategy seems
to parallel the intensive RWH programs currently being

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Figure 4. Representation of the coupled natural and human system of south Indian agriculture as a function of both natural and anthropogenic
drivers is depicted. The figure demonstrates how the complex web of feedbacks within this system can lead to unintended consequences. Tank
restoration increases food security, while concurrently reducing income disparities (since even the poorest farmer has access to tank water), and
increasing social equity. From an environmental perspective, tank restoration also can increase local groundwater recharge and thus increase
environmental flows. Restoration projects are therefore being heavily promoted in India as a sustainable alternative. Problematically, however, the
increased recharge and rising groundwater levels often trigger increased pumping (represented as bidirectional arrows between pumping and GW
levels), which coupled with increased surface water depletion by irrigation and greater evaporation losses, can ultimately lead to reductions in
environmental flows.

developed within India. The question remains, however, as to
whether this approach indeed provides a sustainable alternative
in the modern world. To answer this question it is necessary to
understand how RWH alters the water portrait (stores and
fluxes) within a basin, and how the water portrait shapes the
social landscape. An obvious but perhaps overlooked fact of
RWH is that it does not increase the overall water availability
within a basin, as sometimes touted, but merely alters the
distribution of water between upstream and downstream users,
and between socioeconomic and environmental demands. The
result is a trade-off of water availability, and any proper
evaluation of a RWH system requires understanding,
quantifying, and prioritizing these multiple uses based on
local and regional needs.
Fundamentally, any such evaluation must first consider the
central trade-off between maintaining environmental water
flows and harnessing these flows for human use. Recent work
has framed this consideration of environmental flows in terms
of what are referred to as the ecological limits of hydrologic
alteration (ELOHA).52 Establishing the boundaries of such
ecological limits is essential to establishing ecologically based
regional flow standards. In India, with its semiarid climate and
intensive use of water, rivers are in many areas dry in most
years,9,53 and estuaries and mangrove wetlands along the coasts
are becoming increasingly saline due to reduced freshwater
inflows.54 Ideally, water management plans, including those
involving RWH, should be designed to ensure that environ-
mental flows to estuaries are maintained even in the driest
years, and that only “excess” water is allocated for irrigation use.
Next, the “excess” water must be allocated within a
watershed, taking into account the many different trade-offs.
Studies indicate that increases in the number of RWH systems
leads to decreases in water availability in downstream reservoirs,
and a consequent increase in upstream-downstream conflicts,
especially in the drier years.19 Furthermore, in semiarid
landscapes like South India, the high surface area-to volume
ratio of the RWH tanks can lead to large evaporative losses,
creating a pathway for net water depletion from the basin.55
Although environmental benefits can accrue from increased
recharge, which increases groundwater levels and potentially
sustains baseflows in streams over longer periods,52 whether or
not recharge is a substantial benefit of the tanks is a function of

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the soil on which the tanks are constructed. RWH tanks
constructed on clayey soils have been judged to be nearly 100%
inefficient with regard to groundwater recharge, causing them
to act simply as evaporation pans.56,57 Modeling studies suggest
that the benefits of additional RWH structures at the watershed
scale may be minimal,55,56 with one recent study predicting that
increasing the number of RWH structures would decrease
runoff within the basin by 60%, while increasing groundwater
recharge by only 5%.58 This shift in the water balance appeared
to be primarily due to the increase in evapotranspiration caused
by increased irrigation and changes in land use.
Notwithstanding these factors, decentralized solutions like
rainwater harvesting do have benefits over traditional irrigation
systems. First, rainwater is used at the location where it falls on
the land, and thus the transmission losses associated with
extensive canal network systems are minimized. Second, RWH
systems use rainwater, which has faster time scales of
replenishment than groundwater, and thus can be considered
to be a more sustainable source. Furthermore, water stored in a
RWH tank is commonly distributed equitably between all
villagers, in contrast to groundwater irrigation systems where
only the wealthier farmers have access to irrigation water.34
Finally, as discussed above, the socioeconomic benefits
provided by tanks extend beyond a source of irrigation water,
and economic returns from tanks have been found to more
than double when considering multiple uses.33
5. RAINWATER HARVESTING AS A COUPLED HUMAN
AND NATURAL SYSTEM
One of the most striking attributes of these millennia-old RWH
systems is the close coupling that exists between the natural and
the human systems. Just as the climate and geomorphology of
the region have shaped the creation of these ancient water-
delivery systems and the social practices that have grown up
around them, the systems themselves have shaped the
environment that we see today in South India, where rivers
run dry for years at a time, and invasive tree species colonize
the tank beds, tapping into reservoirs of shallow groundwater.
Such a close coupling of the human and natural systems is
intensified by the sheer longevity of these RWH tanks in
some cases they can be said to have existed with greater
constancy than some natural ecological communities making
it nearly impossible to separate this network of distributed
storage from the natural system in which it is embedded.59
Accordingly, any consideration of rainwater harvesting as a
solution to current problems of groundwater depletion must
include an understanding of interacting social, economic, and
ecological processes.
Tank systems are affected by an array of forces operating at
different geographic and administrative scales, with time lags
between cause and effect, feedbacks between effect and cause,
failure thresholds, and connections among environmental and
human components. These characteristics are emblematic of
coupled human and natural systems (CHANS), an emerging
interdisciplinary framework for analyzing the dynamics of
complex systems.60,61 Figure 4 shows a conceptual model of the
tank irrigation system that borrows from both the CHANS
perspective and the Driving Force-Pressure-State-Impact-
Response (DPSIR) framework often applied to environmental
assessment and sustainable development.62−64 The model is
bounded by the human and natural driving forces that combine
and interact to exert pressure on the tank system. The Driving
Forces (e.g., population, well technology, climate, and
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hydrology) are indirect and entrenched determinants of water
sustainability, and are represented by the outer two rings.
Pressures are the specific processes produced by combinations
of natural and human system drivers, and occupy the next inner
ring. The States and Impacts are collectively identified in the
innermost ring, while Responses are societal actions intended to
remedy impacts, and feed back to driving forces and pressures.
As an example of these dynamics, Figure 4 focuses on the
particular pressures of groundwater pumping and tank
management. Excessive pumping influences the State of the
CHANS attributes (e.g., increases in irrigated area and income,
decreases in groundwater levels, and functionality arising from
excessive reliance on groundwater extraction). Increased
reliance on groundwater pumping also negatively impacts
tank management practices, thus exerting additional pressure
on the system state, and leading to a series of positive and
negative Impacts on the system (e.g., increases in income from
increases in irrigated area, well failure from excessive ground-
water depletion, reduced environmental flows from reduction
in groundwater levels and recharge, and social inequity, as
groundwater wells can only be afforded by wealthier farmers).35
Finally, these Impacts lead to a series of Responses like the
engagement of NGOs and government organization in tank
rehabilitation to raise income levels of the poorest farmers, as
well as to mitigate excessive groundwater depletion. This
network of cause and effect, as represented by the arrows in
Figure 4, provides merely one example of the complexity of the
CHANS system, many other possible connections exist. While
analyzing the entire realm of connections is beyond the scope
of this feature article, it is necessary to acknowledge that a
proper analysis of RWH systems requires consideration of these
linkages and feedbacks.
These feedbacks contribute to the existence of thresholds,
the notion that systems may fail in an abrupt, nonlinear fashion,
which is yet another attribute of CHANS systems. Thresholds
are notoriously difficult to identify in advance because sudden
collapse may be preceded by a long period of gradual
degradation, reducing the perceived urgency to adapt.65 Steady
annual increases in groundwater pumping, and transitions to
water-intensive crops (Figure 4) may not be remarkable when
considered individually, but operating concurrently these
pressures reduce the buffering capacity of the system to
external shocks. In the event of a prolonged drought, systematic
well failure, or significant bund breach, the agricultural system
of a village with a degraded tank is at much greater risk of
collapse, with potentially serious long-term impacts to the
livelihoods of people and the viability of the community.
6. A WAY FORWARD: CAN RAINWATER HARVESTING
ADDRESS PROBLEMS OF WATER SCARCITY?
Globally, as water use continues to escalate, aquifers are
depleted, and more than a third of the population is affected by
water scarcity, maintaining a stable water supply is perhaps
more important than ever. As RWH is being revived or newly
adopted in many areas of the world to address the challenges of
limited water availability,17,18,21,66,67 we must ask whether these
ancient technologies represent a sustainable alternative under
modern socioeconomic and environmental pressures. The
answer is not simple, and requires understanding and
quantifying the socioeconomic and environmental trade-offs
associated with these systems. For example, in areas such as
Sub-Saharan Africa, where there might be a relative abundance
of unallocated water resources, but a lack of economic means to
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mobilize these resources, the low-cost, community-level water
storage provided by RWH can play a valuable role in increasing
yields and improving food security for small and marginal
farmers.19 In contrast, in basins for which no extra water
resources are available to meet consumptive water demands,
the creation of new RWH structures can do little more than
change the spatial distribution of water, essentially providing a
downstream-to-upstream water transfer.9 From a socioeco-
nomic perspective, however, even in such “closed” basins,
increased use of RWH systems can lead to a more equitable
distribution of the water supply, encouraging use of a commons
resource instead of groundwater sources, which are generally
privately held.33
Accordingly, RWH must be considered as just one part of an
integrated plan to both maximize water availability and to
manage demand. A first step along this path would be an
accurate accounting of basin-wide water use by analyzing use,
depletion, and water productivity at the basin scale.68 The
benefits and potential of community-scale water management
options must then be considered in the context of existing
infrastructure as well as planned large-scale interventions. If a
revival of RWH is deemed beneficial, it must be carried out
concurrently with measures to manage demand, including the
elimination of electrical subsidies for groundwater pumping,
improvements in irrigation efficiency through drip irrigation,
reductions in nonbeneficial evaporation from soil or supply
sources, a shift to less water-intensive crops, or irrigating
current crops at a deficit.27
Based on current trends, it is likely that RWH systems, both
old and new, will play a role in addressing the challenges of
limited water availability.12,20 Determining the appropriate
bounds of this role, however, will require us to broaden our
focus beyond the village scale, where the more tangible social
and economic benefits of RWH may be seen, to the basin scale,
where most environmental impacts and larger upstream-
downstream conflicts are felt. Currently, however, there are
limitations in our ability to take such broad considerations into
account. Data is lacking to support modeling efforts designed to
clarify the regional hydrological impacts of RWH, and further
research is necessary to determine optimal numbers of RWH
structures within a watershed, rather than relying simply on
historical precedence.47,55 It is also necessary to look beyond
the water balance, and frameworks of analysis must be
developed to place consideration of RWH solutions within
the context of a coupled human and natural systems approach.
One of the central tenets of the emerging science of
sociohydrology is to account for the dynamics of interactions
between water and people.69 In the spirit of such an endeavor,
only a systems approach, accounting for the coevolutionary
dynamics of the coupled human-water system, can allow us a
full understanding of the potential for RWH to alter the social
and hydrological landscapes of water-stressed areas throughout
the world
■
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*Phone: 519-888-4567, ×32257, 37917; e-mail: nandita.basu@
uwaterloo.ca.
Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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■ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research is financially supported by the U.S. National
Science Foundation (1211968), Dynamics of Coupled Natural-
Human Systems. We thank the DHAN Foundation for
generously sharing their experiences, data, and hospitality.
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