NATS 1840 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Arthur Cotton, Colonial India, Silt
15 Nov 2015
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Nats 1840 lecture 8 colonialism and agrarian water management. Floods in the orissa delta in colonial india. Flood control embankments, flooding, cheap and easy to build. Colonel arthur cotton, canals to control the river, irrigate, commerce. Economic concerns, indian empire transferred to crown ownership (1858), private capital was investing in transport networks. Canals better than railways, equal investment, investment guarantees. Many irrigators did not use system, rate reductions, distinguishing between. System slow to develop, under-utilized, government takeover in 1868 licensed and unlicensed areas, rate collection. Laws against bunds, small embankments created by cultivators to trap water from drainage lines . Forms of water capture: ponds, tanks and drainage canals. Government forced use of canal system rather than local sources. Owners rate for land was to be increased when irrigation was added. Embankments prevented smaller scale flooding, which brought fertilizing silt. Canal problems: higher elevations could not take on canal water, lower regions became waterlogged.
