Nature has its own rhythms, with which we, as beings of nature, must harmonize.  One such rhythm is the twice-yearly monsoon which replenishes the underground water supplies of Auroville and its surrounding area.  Auroville, which is situated near the town of Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu, South India, is a fast growing community of individuals concerned both with understanding their environment, and of living in harmony with it.  Central to this process is understanding how Man and Nature both use and conserve water.  With this aim, much detailed work is currently being undertaken under the auspices of the “Auroville Greenwork Resource Centre”, in order to collect comprehensive data on present trends in water stocks and water use. 

The interest in the work currently going on in Auroville lies in the detail with which it is approaching the question of “Where is all the water going?”  Thus, it covers the broadest possible spectrum of water use, from the large-scale farmer, the traditional village community, through the householder, to water consumption by the very trees which make up our environment. 

The first stage of this program, though, has been to map out the hydrological conditions in Auroville.  That means, detailing both the distribution of underground water, and also water catchment from rain in the Auroville area,  work carried out by the Central Groundwater Board in 1984 outlined the basic conditions in the area, such as an annual average rainfall of 1227mm (mostly concentrated during the Northeast monsoon between October and November), a figure based on rainfall from 1900-1984. 

Put in a global perspective, this figure is more than twice the average rainfall of, say, a far from dry city such as London.  It has also proved to be reasonably dependable, subject to an expected variation, either up or down, of about 28%.  Based on the same figures, farmers can expect normal, or near-normal rainfall twice in every three years; a moderate excess or deficit once in every five years; but a large excess or deficit only once or twice every century.   

Actual water use, however, particularly for agriculture, is rapidly on the increase.  And since nature’s water supply in the form of rain is very unlikely to experience a proportional increase, it has become important to understand where the water we use actually comes from and goes to.  The situation, in fact, is very similar to that weekly outgings with its weekly income.  The family purse is like the acquifer system below Auroville.  This underground water system is not a magic pot of gold from which you can take a continuous stream of money; rather, it is like a real-life family money pot, in which yearly outgoings have to be at least matched by a yearly income.  The problem has always been, though, that the purse has continuously had money in it.  Furthermore, it was found full, so no one has had cause to ask just how much was there to begin with.  But now habits are changing, and this question needs to be answered before the pot runs dry. 

Any underground water system is constantly changing, being recharged by the infiltration of rainwater, at the same time as being depleted by the wells above it.  The wells, though, are the link between an otherwise invisible subterranean world and the everyday life which this invisible world sustains.  They reveal the extent and nature of this world through their locality, depth, water quality and yearly fluctuations and responses to rain and drought.  By noting the position and depth of each well (including discussed ones) in the Auroville area, it will soon be possible to draw detailed maps showing the extent of the area’s underground water system and geological make-up.  The mirror picture above ground is also needed, and although this is the more visible of the two, the world of water consumption has proved complex and difficult to quantify. 

The above-ground picture is currently been compiled by carrying out a series of questionnaires on the use of each well in the study area.  Wells have been grouped into different classes, ranging from simple open wells and hand pumps, to deep, fast pumping bore wells principally for agricultural use.  This information is then linked to wider patterns of consumption and then, by knowing the wells’s depth, to the acquifer upon which it draws water.  By this process, a complete picture of human demand upon the naturally occurring water resources is being compiled. 

The Auroville area represents some real extremes interms of methods and rates of pumping underground water.  At the one extreme are the new solar powered pumps supplying perhaps just a single household.  They can deliver up to 2000 litres per hour, but when their use is carefully regulated, can transform any excess power (over 700 watts in good sunlight) to batteries which can be used to supply light for a family during the evening.  Then in neighboring private farms, at the other extreme, one comes across such anomalies as this: pumping from a deep bore well at night, via a hose pipe, into a large open well, and then repumping the water during the heat of the day into open irrigation channels, finally to reach outlying fields following the depleting force of evaporation and wasteful seepage.  

The biggest water use, though, is perpetrated by a seemingly unregulated and mainifestly wasteful use of water by electric powered deep bore wells.  Situated at the centre of often relatively small agricultural concerns (perhaps 8 acres), they are left to run from 12 to 20 hours each day, pumping up to a massive 44600 litres per hour.  Certain crops, naturally rice and to a lesser extent vegetables, need large volumes of water to grow well; but this is not necissarily the issue.  Rather, water use becomes an issue when, in approaching such a well, one sees unhealthy and unproductive pools of water, leaking drainage channles, and little regard for the efficient transport of water from the well to where it is needed, namely the plant.  The fact of the matter is that while the electricity to pump the water out of the ground is currently free for agricultural use, such a policy also leaves a clear demarcation in the farmer’s responsibilities.  Water becomes an infinite resource, both in mind and in pocket, therefore making efficiency irrelvant. 

There are a number of simple measures which would be easy to implement (either through choice, subsidy or legislation) such as the use of hose pipes, sprinklers and electric timer switches.  These would make an appreciable difference to daily water use, both through directing water to where it is required, rather than the slightly haphazard lottery of drainage ditches, and also by avoiding the ravages of the Indian sun which can burn off a good centimeter of water a day through evaporation. 

This free use of water is also having a direct effect on the choce of crops being raised.  For example, in the area surrounding Auroville, one sees large plots of casuarina being irrigated by open ditches. The casuarina is a useful tree, used extensively in contruction which can grow in relatively dry conditions.  However, through the use of copious amounts of water, it can be harvested in half the time it would take under normal conditions.  This may make good economic sense in the short-term, but only at the expense of large volumes of water and by diverting land away from food production. 

The present hope of the Auroville Greenwork Resource Centre is to assess the current drain on the underground water system by monitoring the area’s 297 wells.  However, this alone will not be enough to give a truly full picture of the current situation.  Other factors must also be taken into account, some of which are completely invisible to the naked eye.  One of these is the encroachment of sea water in to the freshwater acquifer system, a process which has caused almost irreversible devastation to once fertile areas.  Another far less insidious factor which is now being taken into account is the actual water consumption of the trees whose very function it is to protect and maintain the balance of the environment.  By taking exact measurements of the sap flow of specific trees, it is now possible to calculate with a good degree of accuracy the average water up-take of particular tree species in various ground and weather conditions.  Provisional results show that water up-take by different tree species can vary enormously.  For example, Peltophorum Pterocarpus, a tree commonly found in Auroville, can draw as much as 100 litres per day; whereas an Acacia Auriculiform is of similar age may draw as little as one-third this amount of water under the same weather and soil conditions.  It is therefore evident that trees themselves vary greatly in the efficiency with which they utilize the ground water available to them; and that, when counted in tens of thousands, they cosntitute a significant factor in any future predictions as to not only the rates of water use for any specific area, but also, the efficiency with which that water is used. 

Experimental work carried out in the field on living trees is adding greatly to our understanding of how trees utilize soil water, as well rain water, and how different species use different amounts of water to achieve the same growth rates or ground cover. Many factors need to be taken into account in such a study, but it is nevertheless becoming clear that some trees are able to collect rain water and channel it to their roots more efficiently than others, while also shading the earth around them from the evaporating power of the sun, at the same time as conducting ground water through their roots and trunk system to their leafs, more efficiently than others.  Trees, we realize, still have a great deal to teach us concerning the efficint use of water.  And it is probably a lesson we should learn well.  For if present consumption outweighs annual rainfall, then some hard decisions concerning the more efficient use of water will have to be made. 

The full data is not yet ready, but provisional estimates and a worrying trend of well running dry, not to mention this year’s lower than average rainfall, suggest than an age-old balance is being disturbed.  As is inevitable in our present industrialized age, the “new” brushes with the “old”; and new technology works alongside traditional practices perhaps thousands of years old.  Such is the case in the Auroville area.  On the one hand, there is an the traditional tank system which has been the mainstay of rural water management in Tamil Nadu for hundreds of years.  This method of water storage is also important for catching and recharging the ground water from which bore wells tap their supply.  However, it is being replaced by electrically powered bore wells, which may prove to have a damaging long-term effect on the annual water cycle. 

On the more positive side, there are now many more hand pumps bringing good quality ground water to the heart of rural villages.  These, along with the gently turning windmills, pumping water at rates sufficient for small-scale agriculture, are what seem to work in harmony with their environment.  Similarly, the solar powered pumps, albeit whose economic viability must still be decided due to their high initial cost, work in an almost self-regulating fashion.  While agriculture’s need for water can never really be challenged, questions of efficiency can.  And so long as underground water is seen as an infinite resource, which can be pumped, quite literally, free of charge, attitudes towards its efficient use are likely to be slow to change. 

 Dr. Richard Bunzl in an independent writer from England currently visiting Auroville and Tamil Nadu.  He is particularly interested in environmental and agricultural questions. 

The author would like to thank Murugaian and Anil Graves from AGRC for their help in researching this article.

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