Name: The ancient ingenuity of water harvesting
Uploaded: 2009-12-03T01:00:00Z
Duration: 16 min 57 s
Description: With wisdom and wit, Anupam Mishra talks about the amazing feats of engineering built centuries ago by the people of India's Golden Desert to harvest water. These ancient aqueducts and stepwells are still used today -- and are often superior to modern water megaprojects.

Anupam Mishra: The ancient ingenuity of water harvesting

The ancient ingenuity of water harvesting

With wisdom and wit, Anupam Mishra talks about the amazing feats of engineering built centuries ago by the people of India's Golden Desert to harvest water. These ancient aqueducts and stepwells are still used today -- and are often superior to modern water megaprojects.

Communities in India’s Golden Desert thrive thanks to ingenious rainwater harvesting systems that date back centuries. In a land where annual rainfall can be as little as six centimeters and groundwater sits 100 meters below, locals built stepwells, kunds, and reservoirs to store pure drinking water. These structures, some over 400 years old, continue to outperform costly modern solutions, even supplying millions of gallons per season. Reverence for water, careful maintenance, and community collaboration sustain these systems across generations.