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Irrigation Systems in Bali

Bali’s emerald rice terraces are a photographer’s dream. They are also home to the world’s oldest continuously used irrigation system, run on a unique mix of religious, agricultural and social traditions.

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Religion and ritual have been central to the subak system for hundreds of years. According to Dr Wayan Windia of Bali's Udayana University, this unique form of irrigation was created by Rsi Mar- kandya, a Hindu holy man. He is said to have first visited the Indone- sian island with 800 followers from nearby Java some time in the late 8th century.

"They cleared forest and established Taro village, in the Gianyar regency, about 50 kilometres north of present-day Denpasar," says Wayan, referring to Bali's capital. But in order to grow rice on Bali's rich volcanic soils, the immigrants had to cut terraces and an irrigation system into the steep face of the mountains. Rsi Markandya's followers formed into cooperatives known as kesuawakan. This was the origin of the word subak, from sawah, the name given to the first irrigated fields, says Wayan.

By 1023, the system had become culturally widespread, encouraged by royalty who obviously saw the results of irrigation in improved rice crops."Ancient inscriptions suggest that subaks, and the water temple system that governs them, had become well established by 1071," Wayan says. The fact that the system is still in operation today is a tribute to the pioneers that devised it. The predominant religion in Bali is Hinduism, with more than 90 percent of the island's 3.5 million people considering themselves

Hindu. Balinese Hinduism, however, has evolved independently from the form practised in India, along the way incorporating elements of ancient beliefs that predated the arrival of Hinduism.

"Rice cultivation is very important for the Balinese," says Ketut Suparta, whose family has been farming rice in western Bali for as long as anyone can remember. Ketut, his eight siblings and their families still help his father on their ancestral paddies."Not only is rice our main food," he says,"it also has an important ceremonial role in the religious rites that govern much life in Bali."

Water Wisdom
The most effective rice cultivation requires flooding and draining of flat fields at precise stages of growth. While Bali has plenty of water, it varies with the annual monsoon rains and mostly flows in deep river gorges, far below the fertile fields. These factors combined to make life difficult for early rice farmers.

To solve these problems, the subak farmers diverted water from high mountain lakes into tunnels, aqueducts and channels. They used a hierarchy of weirs and terraces and a network of contour-following irrigation canals and tunnels. Using carefully planned staggered planting schedules and water allocations, this gave all farmers access to sufficient water to grow their crops. The hidden workings of the subak system start with a high mountain weir constructed of logs, earth and stones, which diverts water into tun- nels. Then an aungan, a water tunnel that can reach up to 3 kilometres long, is dug by hand. As the diverted river pours down the steep slopes, more tunnels feed water to the top of the next rice terrace. A simple wooden rudder-like structure, or a sluice gate, divides water propor- tionally according to the size of the rice area, an allocation known as tektek.

"The subak tunnels are not built in proportion to the volume of water that passes through them," notes subak expert and anthropologist Steve Lansing from the University of Arizona in the United States."Expansion of the irriga- tion area was accomplished not by enlarging existing tunnels, but by adding extra tunnels, often only a short distance from existing ones." This demanded a high degree of con- sensus from all subak members.