Local Perception of the Multifunctionality of Water

USNR #350792, VOL 0, ISS 0

Local Perception of the Multifunctionality of Water Tanks in Two Villages of Tamil Nadu, South India VICTORIA REYES-GARCIÁ, OLIVIA AUBRIOT, PERE ´ N-DELARIZA-MONTOBBIO, ELENA GALA CASTILLO, TARIK SERRANO-TOVAR, AND JOAN MARTINEZ-ALIER QUERY SHEET This page lists questions we have about your paper. The numbers displayed at left can be found in the text of the paper for reference. In addition, please review your paper as a whole for correctness. Q1: Au: Please check and confirm that address for correspondence is complete and correct. Q2: Au: Please check and confirm that names and affiliations of all authors are correct as written. Q3: Au: Please confirm, is ‘‘paddy’’ a crop, or an adjective for rice? Q4: Au: Updated reference information available for Aubriot (2009)?

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Local Perception of the Multifunctionality of Water Tanks in Two Villages of Tamil Nadu, South India Victoria Reyes-Garcıá, Olivia Aubriot, Pere Ariza-Montobbio, Elena Galań-DelCastillo, Tarik Serrano-Tovar, and Joan Martinez-Alier

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Society and Natural Resources, 0:1–15 Copyright # 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0894-1920 print=1521-0723 online DOI: 10.1080/08941920802506240

Local Perception of the Multifunctionality of Water Tanks in Two Villages of Tamil Nadu, South India VICTORIA REYES-GARCIÁ

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Institucio´ Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avanç ats and Institut de Cie`ncia i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

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OLIVIA AUBRIOT French Institute of Pondicherry, Puducherry, India, and UPR 299, CNRS, Villejuif Cedex, France

´ N-DELPERE ARIZA-MONTOBBIO, ELENA GALA CASTILLO, TARIK SERRANO-TOVAR, AND JOAN MARTINEZ-ALIER

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Institut de Cie`ncia i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain Using data from free listings and a survey in two villages of Tamil Nadu, India, we discuss local perceptions and uses of water tanks, a traditional irrigation infrastructure. We hypothesize that both farmers and nonfarmers perceive and use water tanks for purposes other than irrigation. We found that informants recognized the importance of water tanks for irrigation, but also acknowledged other socioeconomic uses and ecological functions. Marginal sectors (i.e., Scheduled Castes) use tank resources in more diverse ways than other sectors of the population. Findings are relevant for development. International organizations working on the revival of water tanks aim to transfer water management to farmers for the purpose of irrigation. By recognizing that tanks benefit people other than farmers and in ways other than providing irrigation water, organizations working on tank rejuvenation could achieve a more equitable management of tank resources. Keywords irrigation, local perception, multifunctionality, Tamil Nadu, water tanks

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Received 18 January 2008; accepted 1 August 2008. This research was funded by a Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant (CT-2006-036532). Ariza-Montobbio, Galań-del-Castillo, and Serrano-Tovar benefited from an internship at the French Institute of Pondicherry to conduct field work and to get logistic support. Our thanks go to I. Prabakhar (IFP) for his help and advice, to R. Nithya and Anamalai for daily support in the field, and to ICRISAT-Patancheru for office facilities to Reyes-Garcıá. Thanks also go to the people in Endiyur and Attur for their patience with our questions. J. Bouma, M. Celio, D. Tabara, and J. P. Venot gave valuable comments to previous versions of this article. Address correspondence to Victoria Reyes-Garcıá, ICREA Researcher, Institut de Cie`ncia i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellatera, Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]

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Over the last two decades, irrigation researchers, policymakers, and donor agencies have become increasingly disenchanted with large-scale irrigation systems (Hussain and Hanjra 2004; Moris and Thom 1990; Webb 2006) and have shifted their focus to farmer-managed irrigation systems (Watson et al. 1998). The shift has ocurred parallel to a trend to decentralize water management programs from the state to local users (Parker and Tsur 1997). Research suggests that interventions by outside agencies that aim to devolve water management to local populations can be problematic (Meinzen-Dick and Zwarteveen 1998; Webb 2006). Issues such as the appropriateness of technology, forms of social organization (including gender considerations), and patterns of resource rights have significant implications for conventional top-down approaches (Meinzen-Dick and Zwarteveen 1998; Watson et al. 1998). Social scientists have long argued that if interventions aimed at improving the developmental role of indigenous water management systems are to be effective, planners need to reconsider not only technical but also sociocultural factors (Gleick 2000; Pahl-Wostl et al. 2007; Diemer and Huibers 1996). Despite the claim, many development programs still fail to effectively include sociocultural considerations, often because of the scant research on the topic. In this article, we analyze local perceptions and uses of a locally managed irrigation system, water tanks. Water tanks are an old irrigation infrastructure widespread in the semi-arid areas of southern and central India (Vaidyanathan 2001). Water tanks are shallow reservoirs ranging from a few to more than 1,000 ha and are formed by constructing earthen embankments that extend across the natural drainage flow and that dam in situ rainfall and seasonal runoff. Water tanks are mainly meant for irrigation, but research shows that they also provide other socioeconomic uses and ecological functions that benefit sectors of the society beyond farmers (Gunnell and Krishnamurthy 2003; Palanisami and Meinzen-Dick 2001; Shah and Raju 2002). Researchers concur that the importance of water tanks for irrigation in South India fell steadily during the 19th and 20th centuries (Aubriot 2009, quoting Government of Tamil Nadu 2005; Janakarajan 1993; Palanisami and Meinzen-Dick 2001). Despite the decreasing importance of tanks for irrigation, researchers claim that water tanks can provide a locally managed alternative to groundwater irrigation and to the controversial construction of big infrastructures such as dams (Agarwal and Narain 1997). For the last two decades, Indian and international organizations (including the European Union, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank) have invested considerable resources in the revival of water tanks (Asian Development Bank 2006; Sakthivadivel et al. 2004). Two common traits are found in tank rehabilitation projects. First, tank rehabilitation projects mainly focus on irrigation and water storage (Asian Development Bank 2006) but neglect most alternative uses of water or other tank resources (except fish cultivation). Second, tank rehabilitation projects promote the participation of landowners in tank management (Meinzen-Dick and Zwarteveen 1998), thereby excluding other sectors of the population. In this study, we use data collected in two villages in Tamil Nadu, South India, to analyze local perceptions and uses of water tanks. We hypothesize that both farmers and nonfarmers perceive and use water tanks for purposes other than irrigation. We propose that a better understanding of local people’s perception and uses of water tanks might help improve the design and implementation of tank rehabilitation projects.

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Local Perception of Water Tanks

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Water Tanks in South India From their origins, water tanks were mainly constructed for agricultural purposes. By impounding runoff water from the monsoon rains, tanks support cultivation in the reservoir command area (Jayatilaka et al. 2003). Research shows that tanks also provide other socioeconomic uses and ecological functions (Palanisami and Meinzen-Dick 2001; Shah and Raju 2002). Water from tanks provide many economic (e.g., fisheries) and domestic (e.g., fresh water) uses. Tanks, as they are not full most of the year, also provide other resources such as silt, trees, and grass. Socially, tanks are repositories of symbolic resources and are central elements of villages (Mosse 1997). Tank management systems have been interpreted as public institutions that express social relations, status, prestige, and honor (Singh 2006). Tanks also provide important ecological functions. For example, tanks contribute to flood control and provide protection of the ecology of surrounding area, besides providing habitat for a variety of species (Ratnavel and Gomathinayagam 2006). Tank resources and ecological functions benefit different sectors of the society. In theory, access to water for irrigation is available to all farmers in the tank command area. Water is available to the entire population, not only farmers, for domestic uses (i.e., washing clothes, bathing). Other benefits from the tank resources (e.g., extraction of silt) also reach the entire population in a village (Palanisami and Meinzen-Dick 2001). More importantly, rights to fish, trees, and grass associated with the tanks are often auctioned. Funds generated from auctioned tank resources are often expended on village social activities such as temple construction or village festivals (Janakarajan 1993; Meinzen-Dick 1984; Mosse 1997; Wade 1987).

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The Setting and the People There are around 39,000 water tanks serving about 15,000 villages in Tamil Nadu. Tanks were the main source of surface irrigation in Tamil Nadu until the 1960s (35% of total irrigated area) and they still accounted for about 17% of irrigated area in 2004–2005 (Aubriot 2009, quoting Government of Tamil Nadu 2005). For the purpose of this research, we selected two villages that had water tanks still in use for agriculture. For the village selection we used two criteria that increase villagers’ dependence on tanks for agriculture: (1) rain-fed tanks, that is, tanks not connected to rivers (known as nonsystem tanks), and (2) settlement in a pediplain rocky zone where only shallow open wells are present, compared to alluvial areas where deep tubewells also exist. The studied villages, Attur and Endiyur (Table 1), are located in the Kaluvelli watershed (Tamil Nadu), at about 5 km away from the nearest city, Tindivanam. Agriculture and cattle rearing are the two main econQ3 omic activities. The main crops grown on irrigated land are paddy, sugarcane, banana, casuarina, and cotton, and the main crops grown on nonirrigated lands are groundnut, black gram, finger millet, cotton, and chili. The main socioeconomic difference between both villages is that Endiyur lacks a Scheduled Caste population. Most households have access to drinking water through pipeline. Drinking water is pumped from an overhead tank localized inside the irrigation tank. Each village has a large and a small nonsystem tank, with respective command areas of around 40–45 ha and 15–20 ha. Irrigation water from tanks is available from October to December–February (depending on the rains). Tank irrigation is supplemented with groundwater irrigation. At the time of the research, there were 208

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Table 1. General characteristics of the two study villages Characteristic Total population Population from Scheduled Castes Landless population (%) Wells for irrigation Tanks command area (in ha) Rainfed cultivated area (in ha)

Source

Attur

Endiyur

Census of India 2002 Census of India 2002

1,508 658

2,683 0

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274 61

227 62

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Village Administrative Office Well Census 2004 Village Administrative Office Village Administrative Office

electricity lines for agricultural pumps in Endiyur and 55 in Attur, and numerous pumps using diesel engines to pump groundwater. The Public Works Department (PWD) is the agency responsible for the first sluices opening and tank maintenance (i.e., repairs and desiltation) of the large (>40 ha) tank in each village. The Panchayat Union is the organization responsible for the small tanks. Every year, the PWD and the Panchayat Union alienate the rights to manage the tank resources (grass, fish, and trees) through formal auctions taken by the traditional village heads called natamai. Then a second informal auction is undertaken: An individual or a group buys the right to use the resource. The money thus collected by the village head—perceived as a common fund—is used mainly for temple festivals. Farmers are responsible for water distribution and irrigation canal maintenance. In Endiyur, there are two water users associations, formed in 2000 with the help of a project from a nongovernmental organization working in tank rehabilitation. All farmers in the command area of Endiyur’s tanks, and only these farmers, are included in the water users associations, which have the duty of managing the water tanks (i.e., implement rehabilitation work with the assistance of PWD, plan the water rotational system, and remove encroachers). Nevertheless, with the project being over, water users associations seem not to be effective in the study villages anymore, and tanks are actually managed by the traditional institutions and the Village Panchayat. Despite formal institutional arrangements, most decisions regarding tank management seem to be taken by the wealthiest people of the village, who do not represent the whole village. The hierarchical structure of the society puts into question the participatory and community-based process of tank management.

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Methods The study was conducted under the umbrella of the Social Water Management program of the French Institute of Pondicherry. Three researchers collected data with the help of two assistants fluent in English and the local language, Tamil.

Participant Observation The researchers lived in Endiyur for a 3-month period (February–April 2007). Because Attur is only about 3 km away from Endiyur, the researchers were able to

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visit Attur regularly. During fieldwork, researchers participated in the regular activities of the villages. Notably, they accompanied people in their festive and work activities. Participant observation allowed the understanding of the different ways 155 in which resources from water tanks are used. We also conducted group interviews to get a better understanding of the different perceptions and uses of water tanks according to different social groups. Free Listing We conducted free listing to generate a comprehensive list of reasons why water tanks are important for villagers (Weller 1998). We used a stratified sampling strategy (Bernard 1995), selecting informants from various groups with expected variation in uses of the water tanks, such as men, women (Meinzen-Dick and Zwarteveen 1998), and people from different castes (Tiwary 2006). We also selected people with different occupations (i.e., farmers, shepherds) and with different socioeconomic status (i.e., landowners and landless). The total sample for free listing was 54 respondents. Respondents were asked to generate a list of items in response to the question: ‘‘Why do you think water tanks are important for the village?’’ We probed respondents to give as many reasons as they could conceive. Because our question was general, we do not know whether people were referring to a specific tank when answering our question. From responses to free listing, we calculated (1) the percentage of people who mentioned each reason, (2) the average rank of the order of mention of each reason, and (3) the saliency of each reason, that is, an index that evaluates, with a range from 0 to 1, the overall importance of an item across all of the lists (Bernard 1995; Ross and Medin 2005). Previous research suggests that the order of items in a given list reflects the prototypicality of items in a cultural domain (Robbins and Nolan 1997; Romney and D’Andrade 1964; Smith and Borgatti 1998), so to calculate the Saliency Index we took into account both the number of mentions of an item and the rank of an item across multiple free lists, and following Smith (1993) calculated the saliency index as a gross mean percentile rank, where for a given informant the saliency of item j is Sj ¼ ðn rj Þ=n

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ð1Þ

where rj equals the position of item j in the list, and n the number of items in the list. To compute the overall saliency index of j, we just take the average Sj across 185 respondents. Based on the Saliency Index, we arbitrarily created four categories: high saliency (s > 0.5), medium saliency (0.1 0.5) (n ¼ 1) 80

Category

Crop production

Reasons listed

2.84 3.75 5.51 3.78 3.70 2.92 6.21 4.93 6.00 5.50 6.43 6.33 6.92 7.06

2.093

Average rank

Table 3. Results from free listing about the importance of water tanks in two rural villages in Tamil Nadu (n ¼ 54)

(Continued )

0.37 0.37 0.28 0.28 0.26 0.19 0.17 0.17 0.16 0.15 0.13 0.12 0.11 0.10

0.69

Saliency

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Grass auction Favor presence of plants Employment creation Grass for cattle Trees auction Increase of production Favor presence of birds Temperature control Wash cattle Favor presence of crabs Trees for shadow Silt formation Provides livelihood Males toilet Trees attract the rain Saves pumping electricity Recharge fresh water pond Favor presence of snakes Favor presence of snails

Reasons listed

Table 3. Continued Percent of respondents

Low saliency (s < 0.1 and s > 0.01) (n ¼ 22) Econ–Non agri 22 Ecol 19 Econ–Nonagri 19 Econ–Nonagri 19 Econ–Nonagri 15 Econ–Agri 7 Ecol 9 Ecol 9 Econ–Nonagri 7 Econ–Domestic 7 Ecol 7 Econ–Domestic 7 Econ–Nonagri 7 Econ–Domestic 4 Ecol 6 Econ–Nonagri 2 Ecol 2 Ecol 4 Econ–Domestic 4

Category 6.91 6.30 6.50 6.50 8.75 4.25 7.60 7.00 6.75 5.00 8.00 5.00 6.75 5.50 11.00 2.00 3.00 6.50 6.50

Average rank

0.09 0.08 0.07 0.07 0.06 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01

Saliency

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Marginal saliency (s < 0.01) Socio Ecol Econ–Domestic Ecol Socio Socio Econ–Domestic Socio Socio Econ–Domestic Socio Econ–Domestic

Learn to swim Flood prevention Favor honey production Soil formation Ornamental function Provides common area Favor presence of frogs Leisure space Festival Liquor from trees Temple Domestic water

(n ¼ 12) 2 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

4 2 4 8.00 15.00 6.00 8.00 5.00 7.00 8.00 8.00 8.00 16.00 12.00 14.00

7.00 3.00 11.00 0.008 0.007 0.007 0.006 0.006 0.005 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.001

0.01 0.01 0.01

Note. Econ, economic uses; Ecol, ecologic uses; Socio, sociocultural uses; Agri, agricultural uses; NoAgri, nonagricultural uses; Domestic, domestic uses.

Econ–Domestic Econ–Domestic Ecol

Fruit production Wash vehicles Trees for erosion control

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(e.g., favor honey production), and six sociocultural reasons (e.g., provides common area). Sociocultural reasons appeared only in the marginal saliency group. 245 In additional analysis (not shown), we calculated the Saliency Index grouping respondents according to their socioeconomic status. We first calculated the Saliency Index for the sample of landowner respondents to free listing (n ¼ 32). The list of the 10 most salient items closely resembles the pooled list (Table 3). We then calculated the Saliency Index for the sample of landless respondents to free listing (n ¼ 22). We 250 found that in the lists of landless respondents, ‘‘drinking water for cattle’’ appears as the second most salient item, compared to third on the overall list, and ‘‘well recharge’’ is ranked 13th on this list, versus fourth on the pooled list. How Do Villagers Use Water Tanks? Data from the survey suggest that most households in the sample use water tanks. The average informant reported 2.76 of the 8 uses included in the survey (SD ¼ 1.58; mode ¼ 3). Only nine informants reported no economic use of the water tank by their household. None of the respondents answered positively to all of the uses, and only one answered positively to seven of the eight questions. Forty-one percent of the respondents in the sample reported no agricultural uses of the water tank, 45% reported zero nonagricultural uses of the water tank, and 23% did not report any domestic use. Results from the t-test indicate that households from Scheduled Castes reported a significantly higher overall diversity of use than households from other castes (p < .05). The difference is due to higher domestic use (1.7 versus 1.1; p < .05), as we did not find statistically significant differences in agricultural and nonagricultural economic use of water tanks according to caste. Households who owned land reportedly had a significantly higher diversity of water tanks use than landless households (2.43 versus 1.78, p < .05). Households owning land had a higher number of agricultural (0.42 versus 0.08, p < .05) economic uses than landless households. We did not find differences in the number of domestic uses between the two groups. Cattle owners reported more uses than non-cattle owners (2.64 versus 1.83, p < .05). Cattle owners reported more nonagricultural uses of water tanks than households who did not own cattle (0.91 versus 0.32; p < .05), but a similar number of agricultural and domestic uses. Well owners reported a higher diversity of agricultural (p < .05) uses than households who did not own a well, but there was no statistically significant difference between the groups in the number of domestic uses. The t-test does not allow us to simultaneously control for several individual-level characteristics. In multivariate analysis (Table 4), we ran an ordinary least square regression (column [a]) and a Poisson model (column [b]) of our diversity score against the four socioeconomic characteristics just analyzed. We found two statistically significant variables across the two models: belonging to a Scheduled Caste and well ownership were associated in a positive way to diversity of uses of water tanks. Belonging to a Scheduled Caste was associated with 0.3 to 1.06 more uses of water tanks, and owning one additional well was associated with 0.6 to 1.6 more uses of water tanks. We ran an additional analysis (not shown). Remember that Endiyur does not have people belonging to Scheduled Castes. To test whether our results hold in the village with populations from Scheduled and non-Scheduled Castes, we ran the regressions in Table 4 with the sample from Attur. In both regression models, we found that being from a Scheduled Caste was associated in a positive and statisticaly significant way with higher diversity of uses of water tanks.

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Table 4. Multivariate regressions of the score of diversity of uses of water tanks against household socioeconomic characteristics (n ¼ 94) Explanatory variables a

Scheduled Caste Number of cows Acres of land owned Number of wells Endiyura R2 Regression model

[a]

[b]

1.06 (.050) .199 (.031) .042 (.019) 1.648 (.004) .098 (.055) .30 Ordinary least squares (OLS)

.367 (.177) .055 (.024) .019 (.011) .676 (.168) .050 (.147) .07 Poisson

Note. Regressions include clustering by village of residency and a constant (not shown). Statistical significane indicated by p < .1 and p < .05. a Dummy variable that takes the value of one for the name of the variable and zero otherwise.

Discussion and Conclusion We organize the discussion around two findings that emerge from our results. First, our data suggest that, without denying the importance of water tanks for agriculture, villagers also acknowledge the multifunctionality of water tanks. Second, our data suggest that marginal sectors use tank resources in more diverse ways than other sectors of the population. The first finding that deserves discussion is the local perception of water tanks as multifunctional. In contrast to previous research (Palanisami and Meinzen-Dick 2001), we drew on informants’ insights to compile a list of the reasons why water tanks are locally appreciated. We found that most, but not all, informants mentioned crop production and irrigation as the most relevant uses of water tanks. Thirteen percent of respondents did not mention crop production or irrigation as important reasons for the existence of tanks, which can be interpreted as an indicator that villagers perceive water tanks to be important beyond agricultural uses. Results from our free listing data complement findings from previous ethnographic research highlighting the importance of water tanks as articulators of social institutions (Mosse 1997; Singh 2006; Wade 1987). Previous ethnographic research was oriented to establish the social functions of water tanks, but this research did not question tanks’ economic or ecological functions. Our research provides a local ranking of the importance of the economic, ecological, and social functions of water tanks, a ranking that suggests that local people give more importance to the economic and ecological uses of water tanks than to its sociocultural functions. The finding raises the issue of whether ecological and sociocultural uses and services of water tanks also vary across social sectors of the population. For example, Scheduled Castes might be settled in areas prone to inundation, whereas non-Scheduled Castes might be in more secure areas. Future research should address the issue. The second finding that deserves discussion is the distribution of uses of water tanks across the population. Our data suggest that marginal sectors (Scheduled Castes and people with less land) use water resources in more diverse ways than other sectors of the population. Scheduled Castes have historically had less access

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to land and irrigation than other castes, and they often live far from water tanks (Tiwary 2006). In Attur people from Scheduled Castes lived in proximity to tanks, and our data suggest that currently they use water tanks in more diverse ways than people from other castes. Much of the difference is due to a higher diversity of domestic uses. Although domestic uses of water tanks might be economically less relevant than agricultural uses, these uses might have high value in terms of household consumption, nutrition, and health, especially for the poorer. We conclude by hightlighting some policy issues that emerge from our analysis. Our findings suggest that the local population seems to benefit from the multiplicity of uses and functions of water tanks, irrespective of whether the people use water tanks for irrigation. These findings pose at least three issues that need to be addressed by tank management. First, which of the uses and services generated by water tanks are exclusive? What are the potential trade-offs between different uses and services? For example, intensive agricultural uses might reduce the availability of water for domestic uses during several months. More extensive agricultural uses of water might be more compatible with domestic uses. Second, if there are trade-offs between uses and services, which ones should be maintained? Our research generated a ranked list of the uses and services provided by water tanks to the local population. Future research should measure the intensity of water use for those uses and services and analyze how different sectors of the population value them. Third, should beneficiaries of relatively less salient uses and services participate in tank management? If not, how can users other than farmers have a voice to ensure that ‘‘nonirrigation’’ uses and services are maintained? We suggest that in addressing those complex policy issues, organizations can achieve the social sustainability of tank rehabilitation projects if they recognize that tanks benefit people other than farmers and in ways other than providing water for irrigation.

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