Making Water Everybody鈥檚 Business edited by Anil Agarwal and others,
Centre for Science and the Environment, New Delhi, 890 rupees/$18.12,
ISBN 8186906274
IN ENGLAND, the village pond is for ducks, and the rainwater butt is for
watering the garden. Ducks are pleasing to the eye, as is an English garden in
bloom, but neither are vital to survival. In India, capturing and storing rain
is a matter of life and death.
In this fascinating amalgam of technology and politics, Anil Agarwal,
director of India鈥檚 ground-breaking Centre for Science and the Environment,
resurrects the skills of rainwater harvesting. Here are pits and tanks, check
dams and ponds鈥攁ll testament to a vital but largely hidden means of
survival in monsoon country.
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Agarwal shows how, before the British arrived, huge areas were set aside to
capture the rains. But under British rule, these systems fell into disrepair.
The state has now assumed responsibility for water supply, using Western
methods.
But the book also argues that India鈥檚 current susceptibility to drought could
be eliminated if desert communities learned again how to collect the sporadic
rains. 鈥淭here is no village in India which cannot meet its drinking water needs
through rainwater harvesting,鈥� he writes.
The message of Making Water Everybody鈥檚 Business applies the world
over, and others have taken note. Frankfurt鈥檚 newest airport terminal flushes
its toilets, waters its plants and cleans its air conditioning system with
rainwater collected from the roof.