NATS 1840 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Arthur Cotton, Colonial India, Management System
22 Feb 2019
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Nats 1840 f lecture 8 colonialism and agrarian water management. Flood management was designed to exploit excess water for agricultural purposes, but in certain cases, it was also needed to prevent damage to agricultural works and dwellings. The central issue for water management of this kind was whether or not it was possible to contain or control the damage created by natural flooding, or whether containment efforts actually worsened the damage. Your reading focuses on attempts to manage devastating floods in the orissa. There was an early awareness that flood control embankments used by the british increased floods in the long run, but their use was still common, as they were relatively cheap and easy to build. The british hired a well known hydrological engineer, colonel arthur cotton, to resolve the problem, cotton recommended a series of canals to control the river, these canals would also be used to feed the irrigation system.
