Monsoons, rice production, and urban growth: The microscale management of ‘too much’ water

Abstract

In discussions of human-environmental dynamics and climate change, treatments of water usually focus on the problem of drought. Monsoon environments constitute a different set of parameters for landscape interactions because of seasonal episodes of water abundance. In this paper, we evaluate the microscale management of routine and anticipated high-water events for the ancient Indian subcontinent, where people used the monsoon cycle to engage in rice farming that in turn supported the growth of cities. Rice production would have encompassed two fluctuating inputs: rural labor, which may have become scarce when villagers left farmlands to become city dwellers; and water, the quantity of which varies dramatically on both a seasonal basis because of the monsoon and on an occasional basis because of tropical cyclones. The abundance of water (even with its risks of overabundance) encompassed numerous logistical challenges but also permitted high productivity within short distances of urban centers. The case study of the ancient city of Sisupalgarh in eastern India illustrates that high levels of productivity per land area enabled city residents to engage in short-distance economies for food production, while maintaining regional contacts through durable-goods trade to mitigate occasional episodes of crop failure in times of major flooding.