FEATURES SRI LANKA YESTERDAY Sri Lanka: Ancient innovations combat water woes In a village of abandoned wells, ancient water management techniques are throwing a lifeline to desperate villagers. TTooppiiccss:: Syria's Civil War US Election 2016 Black Lives Matter Boko Haram Refugees NNeewwss PPrrooggrraammmmeess OOppiinniioonn IInnvveessttiiggaattiioonnss Live Sri Lanka: Ancient innovations combat water woes - News fro... http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/09/sri-lanka-an... 1 of 19 9/25/16, 5:23 PM
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FEATURES SRI LANKA YESTERDAY
SSrrii LLaannkkaa:: AAnncciieennttiinnnnoovvaattiioonnssccoommbbaatt wwaatteerrwwooeessIn a village of abandonedwells, ancient watermanagement techniques arethrowing a lifeline todesperate villagers.
TTooppiiccss:: Syria's Civil War US Election 2016 Black Lives Matter Boko HaramRefugees
NNeewwss PPrrooggrraammmmeess OOppiinniioonn
IInnvveessttiiggaattiioonnss
Live
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by Smriti Daniel
A resident of the small village of Puhudiwula stands besideher neglected rainwater harvesting tank [TharukaDissanaike/ UNDP/ Al Jazeera]
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PPuuhhuuddiiwwuullaa,, SSrrii LLaannkkaa -- In the district ofAnuradhapura in Sri Lanka, Puhudiwula is a villageof abandoned wells. Though new and well-built, thesewells can be found in every garden, costing around100,000 rupees ($700) to build. The villagers,however, will not drink or even cook with the water,which they believe is driving an epidemic of thedeadly Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Etiology(CKDu) in this area. While the illness is not the endof the community's troubles, many of their woes aretied to water.
These are the hottest months of the year inPuhudiwula, deep in the island's dry zone. The localwater tank is nearly dry - its bed is ribbed with cracksas the clay changes colour, hardening under the sun.This year, to save their crop of paddy, the farmersordered bowsers to deliver water to their fields.Climate change in these parts means more dry daysand higher temperatures; it also means that peoplehave to dig deeper wells to meet their needs,inadvertently increasing the risk of the contamination
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of their drinking water.
As a former border village on the frontlines of anearly three-decade long civil war, the villagers livedwith sporadic violence and terrible uncertainty. Now,seven years after the conflict ended, times are stilltough, but the village of Puhudiwula is about to bethrown a lifeline.
In 2016, Sri Lanka became one of the first 15countries in the world to receive a grant from theGreen Climate Fund. The Ministry of MahaweliDevelopment and Environment, with the assistanceof the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP), procured $38.1m to help communitiesadapt to the impacts of climate change. Over the nextfew years, an estimated 770,500 people in the dryzone, including those in Puhudiwula, will experiencedirect benefits from this programme.
Somewhat remarkably, the whole proposal turns onSri Lanka realising that the best answer to theirmodern woes is an ancient innovation.
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A sign in Sinhalese by 40-year-old Bandula Silva'sdoor in Puhudiwula reads "May Buddha Bless thisHouse". Inside, however, its owner has been dealt adeath sentence. Eleven months ago, the 40-year-oldfrom Puhudiwula was diagnosed with CKDu. Hebegan treatment but the disease had already ravagedhis body. The father of three is barely able to walkand cannot keep his food down, except just after asession of dialysis, when the treatment brings somerelief. It is difficult to predict how much time hisweekly visits to the hospital will buy him.
Just down the road from Silva, G Premawathie hasthe same disease - the elderly widow's kidneys have
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begun to fail her and fluid retention has left her feetand ankles swollen. She has another neighbour, a29-year-old farmer who was recently diagnosed.Though the intensity of the condition can vary,villagers know the outlook is grim: Two days ago,they attended the funeral of a man who hadsuccumbed to CKDu. The diseased was a closerelative of Piyasiri Soyza, president of the localfarmers' association. Soyza estimates that there arecurrently more than 100 people battling CKDu in thisarea. He lost his own father to the disease.
Since he was diagnosed, Silva and his family havestopped drinking water from their well. Premawathieand her family also buy their water, paying by thelitre.
"The water from our well tastes of rust," she tells AlJazeera. Soyza, who is hale and fit at 57 years old,says for years now he has travelled several kilometreseach week to bring his family water from anothervillage where there is a spring and no occurrence ofCKDu.
Children in a village near Horowpathana can only drinkfrom this tank, which must be refilled frequently. The waterfrom their well is unusable [Tharuka Dissanaike/ UNDP/ AlJazeera]
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CKDu has been reported in many countries, yet thedisease remains poorly understood. In Sri Lanka,studies have explored multiple causes, most notablythe possibility that the heavy use of agrochemicals isto blame. The fact that men are most at risk ofdeveloping the condition has led researchers toconsider what role dehydration and outdoor farmwork might play, though it is likely to be acombination of many factors.
In a presentation earlier this year, SarathAmunugama, of the Ministry of Health, noted thatthere was a need to move away from a single causeexplanation to multi-causal explanations when tryingto understand the disease.
According to a Government Medical OfficersAssociation study in 2013, a total population of400,000 are affected across the country. Some 1,400lives are claimed every year, while the death rate inNorth Central Province is 19 per month - the island'shighest (PDF).
In the face of this ongoing tragedy, everyone isscrabbling for answers. Providing clean water seemsto be the most obvious first solution, and it is one theaffected communities themselves are seeking out.
"The entire population is affected by drought, but themost disadvantaged and most vulnerable group arewomen," says AADWS Pradeep, a divisional officer atthe Department of Agrarian Services. "Women areresponsible for providing drinking and householdwater, and when the wells and tanks dry up, theyhave to go far away to find it."
Men often migrate to areas where there is water,because seasonal labourers are sought to work onfields. Left behind, women must manage not only the
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needs of their households for cooking and sanitation,but ensure their domestic animals have enough todrink and their home gardens are watered, or theyrisk being unable to feed their families.
READ MORE: Are 'Water Wars' imminent in Central Asia?
AAnn aanncciieenntt iinnnnoovvaattiioonn
Though climate change threatens to exacerbate thesituation to a dangerous degree, RanjithPunyawardena, chief climatologist at the Departmentof Agriculture tells Al Jazeera that people in SriLanka's dry zone have always struggled to findenough water. Some of the small village tanks in thisarea have been in operation for more than 2,000years. The best estimates place the total number ofboth functioning and abandoned tanks in Sri Lankaat 18,387 [PDF].
Over generations, these tanks evolved into cascadesystems connecting these earthen water reservoirs -resembling ponds and lakes - with each other using asystem of canals.
"The cascades were a counter for this natural climatevariability," says Punyawardena, adding that withoutthese innovative water management systems,cultivation in the dry zone would have beenimpossible.
According to Herath Manthrithilake, head of theresearch programme at the International WaterManagement Institute in Sri Lanka, the tanks"eventually evolved into a new kind of hydrologicalcivilisation."
Manthrithilake explains that some tanks would bewater holes, serving as upstream sediment traps.Forest tanks in the upper catchment area were for
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local wildlife and kept animals from competing withhumans for water. Others were especially designed toreplenish ground water or support seasonalirrigation.
The ancients even developed their own sluice gatedesign, allowing water to be collected from thesurface of the tank, rather than its murky depths.
The restored bund is so broad it is now a main point ofaccess for this Galgamuwa village. It is used to transportcrops and bring materials to the fields. [TharukaDissanaike/ UNDP/ Al Jazeera]
Now the funds from the GCF are going to be investedin restoring a number of these cascade systems in thedry zone, including the one adjacent to the village ofPuhudiwula.
Experts say rehabilitating the network of small villagetank irrigation systems means protecting the forestseven as farmers get the water they need to cultivatetheir crops, ensuring food security in a veryvulnerable region. It also means that groundwatercould be replenished and that water quality in thevillage wells around the tank would improve as aresult.
Villagers would not have to dig so deep to reach theliquid, and pockets of contaminated water would
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become less likely, offering some protection againstdiseases such as CKDu.
The relatively linear arrangement of these tanks,explains Manthrithilake, allows for the installation ofmonitors that can then function as an early warningsystem, alerting villages along their length to thethreat of floods.
"Water is the big player in this whole scenario; this isthe medium through which we experience climatechange," says Manthrithilake.
INSIDE STORY: What can be done to stop globalwater scarcity?
It all comes down to water management, both inexcess and scarcity. However, restoring andmaintaining these cascade systems in a time ofwidespread environmental degradation, poorintergovernmental coordination, and the ever greaterchallenges posed by climate change, is a monumentaltask.
"The current approach is very sectoral," says TharukaDissanaike. A policy specialist with the UNDP,Dissanaike says that there is a marked lack ofcoordination between irrigation and drinking waterauthorities from state to village level.
"What we are now coming up with is a transformativemodel that treats drinking and irrigation water as asingle local resource - much like the ancients did. It isimportant to value both uses equally since smallirrigation systems contribute to drinking wateravailability in these villages."
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A father and daughter go to collect water. These are thethirstiest months in the dry zone, and the family travelsseveral kilometres twice a week to a shop. [TharukaDissanaike/ UNDP/ Al Jazeera]
Adapting to climate change
Some cascade systems are currently being restored,with heartening results. Sampath BandaraAbeyrathne, the project manager of the ClimateChange Adaptation Project at the UNDP, has beendirecting a team of researchers and engineers,overseeing the restoration of the 28 tanks that arepart of the Maha Nanneriya tank cascade system inGalgamuwa in the Kurunegala district.
Abeyrathne grew up in these parts and explains thatthe de-silting of these tanks must be done verycarefully, ensuring that the natural clay seal remainsintact to prevent seepage and that the holdingcapacity of the tank is not affected. The ratio of depthversus spread of the water in the tank is critical tomanaging issues like salinity, water evaporation andflow within the cascade.
Abeyrathne points out that a catchment area is onlyas good as the forest it relies on. But a drone he sentup recently came back with images that revealed hugepatches of deforestation and chena, or shiftingcultivations, in this stretch.
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Despite these issues, one fully restored tank in theMaha Nanneriya cascade has held its water duringthe driest months. Standing on the tank bund, AMAAdikari, a retired school principal and member of thelocal farm organisation, says that for the first time,farmers are contemplating cultivating through threeseasons instead of staggering through just one - amove that will have a profound impact on their foodsecurity and incomes.
WATCH: Sri Lankans struggle to find clean water
It is essential that the community take an active handif the cascade systems that have been repaired are tosurvive, emphasises Buddhika Hapuarchchi, atechnical adviser at Sri Lanka's ComprehensiveDisaster Management Programme, the UNDP'snational partner on the Maha Nanneriya cascadeproject.
"Galgamuwa is one of the most drought-pronedivisions in Kurunegala, and in fact, the wholecountry," adding that restoring this cascade system is"essentially the pilot project for Sri Lanka on climatechange adaptation. We have to see how toincorporate climate change adaption into ourdevelopment planning process."
The project will also help fuel a quiet revolution in SriLanka's approach to water management.
In years ahead, local farmers say they hope to borrowfrom ancient systems of labour and land sharing,which emphasised a community approach in allthings.
"We had a very good democratic system to managescarce resources as a collective, without creatingunnecessary competition," says Adikari. Thisgeneration, he believes, still has a lot to learn from
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their ancestors.
This restored tank in the Maha Nanneriya cascade will allowvillagers to cultivate three times a year, and offers separatespots for bathing, fishing and cattle [Tharuka Dissanaike/UNDP/ Al Jazeera]
Source: Al Jazeera
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