How Ancient Kings Split a River & Fed Millions

the ancient cholic caves in order to increase the amount of land under cultivation under irrigation what they did was they put these dams in the river to actually raise the water level up and Branch the river into multiple channels and spread those channels out across the landscape forking it out each River becoming two each Two Rivers becoming forward each Four Rivers becoming eight and spreading the water vastly farther across the Delta than it was naturally spreading creating a much larger area of food production and in this way this area became the Bread Basket of the state of taminadu where I [Music] am Delta Farmers did not refer to their soil as soil always they were very proud and they called soil as gold Tango they s they were growing four crops in a year and they were the richest farmers in the entire region 12,000 years ago they built a port at the cavari Delta point where Roman ships Greek ships Arabian ships Chinese ships there is substantial evidence to even Today Show this all this happened because of the prosperity that k brought to their life to CI is seen as a goddess who brought wealth and well-being to them I've been traveling In this River delta for a week looking at the Brilliance of this ancient water system that is still being utilized to this day I'm here at another check Dam this Dam here splits the calary with the aralar river this is the first part here going across the calvary River and then we hit this island right here and then on the other side of this island we have the part of the cck dam which crosses the aralar river and so this Dam sits here and it spreads the water out from One River and makes it into two rivers spreading the water across the landscape CI deviate from here to three parts this is CI that one we this River this Dam so built by solar the purpose for the the same thing agriculture mainly okay yeah very good thank you this a hydraulic structure yeah it's it's not a dam act just people say Dam but because in India we slightly exaggerate it's not a dam it's just a regulator this structure is commonly known as a head regulator it's not a dam with a solid wall because there are gates at the bottom which can be open and clo to manage the amount of water flowing through each channel in this case a river is split into three different channels the head regulator regulates the head or height of the water so the water can be pushed into one of these channels by opening its Gates and closing the other channels during flood water the main Channel Gates can be opened while canal side channels can be closed off to keep them from getting filled with silt it's a very versatile system that can incl include fish ladders and can manage the flow of water over a wide area from one central control [Music] Point how beautifully our Kings have thought about civilization this dynasty here that ruled this place is called the Chona Dynasty one of the large just a dynasties around 1500 years ago they were such such great rulers they thought about water they thought about how important is water to man and they taught one the waters to walk in the river not to just run and fall into the sea and two they know the waters are gussing to the ocean so what they did they split the river so beautifully that it covers the entire country it covers the North south east west and made one River into five rivers and gave it different names so people never thought that one river is being split but these are five independent Rivers until he built the Great Dam and the dam is called Kal in this region Kal uh and the king who designed and executed this is called karikalan he built a very beautiful practical Dam of that that time with STS but then later on it got enhanced it got modified but the flow never got altered it has stood the test of time so the calary river comes and splits into two around SRI rangam Island and located on this island is the famous three ranada Temple which is the largest Hindu temple on the planet with the tallest gold puram which is the tallest Temple feature in all of taminadu it's a holy Island and it's very interesting that it all also is the place where we find a unique ancient water diversion feature the coloni [Music] dam the ancient colon dam was built 1,800 years ago and is the fourth oldest Dam on the planet that is still in use and then the level was raised up by the British when the Bri British colonized India and the purpose of this dam is actually to spread the water from One River the Cy into three rivers and actually spread the water out across the Delta and increase the surface area the span of the Delta to much wider than it was naturally found it's fascinating because it's so well thought out right and just imagine the power of control it gives you can channel the water back to the C River or you can Channel it Downstream or you can Channel it down this way yeah which is a continuation of the C River because as we look Downstream from here is all of this amazing story this Watershed story that is playing out so this is the colay this is the point that the Delta actually start this Dam to some degree was meant to keep water out of this branch and put it in to this Branch this branch and then this one right here this is actually the Grand anakot Canal so this control point right right here this is the first point of interception of this great vast Delta system that moves the water then down this direction this's an entire story that's playing out there which is absolutely [Music] fascinating in the second century 80 that means 1,800 years ago that is one of the oldest hydraulic structure in the world he wants to spread the Delta so that more area to be more territory to be irrigated the only way is to stop the flow of water needlessly going into the sea so the only way the for the king is to spread the irrigation area he has to build lot of controlling structures what they called bed Regulators here more than 2,000 bed Regulators so that you can control the flow at the bed level he constructed what we called artificial Canal we have more than 1,500 canals in this Delta Region and more than 24,000 field channels so that the more areas to be irrigated and if the more areas to be irrigated and more people can go for Rice crop 200 million tons of rice being produced in the Delta Region one of the largest rice producing region in the world like Mong like Mississippi the region so flat and the slope which is ideal one in 2000 means it doesn't require any pumping and the local farmers doesn't need to use any electricity let's look at what happens to this water as as it goes Downstream from here first of all you start seeing this abundance of very dense uh reservoirs which are all being you know feeding off of the water coming from there just see the amount of reservoir here these are all water flow patterns and all these Reservoir wires water harvesting structures all connected and they're not randomly placed they are there is infinite sense and wisdom in how they are located let me just demonstr it by overlaying the streams and you can actually see how they are all connected to each other so so notice how each one of them is actually they are not just randomly located every one of them is connected to the one Downstream and these streams are what connects them these scalop shaped dams and ponds that are just intercepting the branched flow of water just all throughout one after another after another all throughout this whole Watershed absolutely and then you think about the cumulative effect on the groundwater on the available water for irrigation when you have this systemwide water harvesting adaptation to this pattern absolutely and it gets even more beautiful as you go further down by the way Andrew I've done the math for roughly kind of back up the envelope calculation of how much water they are harvesting in this and the surface area of o all these water bodies collectively just in this area alone is twice the largest Inland Lake of India the largest Inland Lake of India is chilika Lake and the surface area of all of this water body is added together just in the southern part of the cavi river is almost twice that much so essentially this system of water bodies is actually the largest storage of water in the whole country of India if we see them as one interconnected hole if you were to think of as one contiguous water body yes I would say it's really a pattern that we can learn from and that we can actually mimic and utilize in other areas of the world where we have a concentration of water at one point but we have the opportunity to actually spread the water out and create a lot more Edge and surface area contact between water and land in regions where we can both increase agricultural production and the lives of of humans and also uh the great abundance of nature that we find in Wetland areas this is a a tremendous story of water harvesting of permaculture that is happening deeply embedded in the culture of these people that that I think needs to be understood uh and appreciated and and part of these lessons need to be taken to other parts of the calvary basic because believe it or not this is also part of the car river right so if this can happen Downstream why can't this story be replicated Upstream are you ready to transform deserts create Lush backyards and feed communities in my almost 30 years as a permaculture designer traveling the world I've put everything I learned into Oregon State University's online permaculture design course or PDC the PDC and PDC Pro are the ultimate ways to begin mastering permaculture Me and My Team guide you through over 20 assignments with more than 100 hours of top quality video lectures and resources all focused on developing your own property or project throughout the course you'll get personalized feedback from a dedicated instructor in a small group setting people are always asking me how can I be part of 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Channel: Andrew Millison

Views: 693,531

Keywords: andrew millison, ecosystem restoration, greening the desert, permaculture india, water harvesting, andrew millison permaculture, andrew millison india, water harvesting permaculture, water harvesting structures, how to start permaculture farm in india, permaculture design in india, food forest permaculture india, watershed restoration, groundwater recharge, depleted aquifer, Cauvery River, Cauvery Calling, Tamil Nadu, Cholla Dynasty, Kallanai Dam, Ranganathaswamy Temple

Id: 1Tu9Tp1tgM8

Length: 12min 24sec (744 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 10 2023