Indigenous Knowledge (IK) of Water Resources Management in West Sumatra, Indonesia

by Wahyudi David & Angelika Ploeger

Water scarcity is one of the most pressing development challenges of the early 21st century. Future generation seems to be those who at the end will have to bear the negative consequence due to the lower access to clean water. According to FAO, agricultural water withdrawal account for nearly 70 % or total global water demand. Clean Water demand management is defined as any actions that reduce the amount of water used or enable water to be used more efficiently. The interesting study about traditional water resources management was done at Padang Laweh Malalo (NPLM) in West Sumatera Indonesia. People in NPLM not only manage their water supply but adapted to the climate change as well. The study was conducted by using participatory rural appraisal (PRA) which is including observation and discussion with local people. The combination of in depth interview, life history, semi structure questionnaire and expert interview was implemented. The interesting result shows that the awareness of the people with the scarcity of water condition has allowed them to face these challenges with wisdom. Aia Adat (where as water controlled and regulate by custom) is one of their strategies to distribute the water fairly to the farmers. The general rule of this irrigation is water will flow from 6 pm – 6 am regularly to all farm land under supervision of kapalo banda (someone chosen by the community). There is a meeting among farmer before cultivation begins, to discuss which crop should be rotated and how much water is needed. Therefore, they have two kind of cultivation calendar; tahun gadang (fourteen month with three time harvest) and a regular calendar. The study may be helpful for other farmers to learn how local wisdom dealing with water scarcity. The improvement on water management system can be come from local knowledge without sophisticated technology.

Read full research paper at http://fofj.org/index.php/journal/article/view/82

Uniform Resource Name Code urn:nbn:de:hebis:34-2014062645576

Photo credit:- Tanti Ruwani (Flickr)