Creating Kaveri Delta beneath our feet: An experiment in grounding socio-hydrology in Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

This paper presents an experiment in grounding socio-hydrology in the Kaveri Delta, Tamil Nadu. It follows a care-ful research attitude that shows a willingness to be blindsided and confronted with surprises, cultivates concerns by immersion in the case, and actively contributes to desired realities and futures. The paper centres and reflects on ways of participatory data collection, from monitoring borewells to gathering groundwater ethnographies. An earlier developed hydrogeological model is introduced and then mirrored to collected well data and grounded in the practices, knowledges and logics of engineers, activists and farmers working and living in the delta. We show engineers maintaining a network of weirs and irrigation canals, water worship and grassroots rejuvenation of tanks, and farmers’ borewell adaptations and insights to oscillating water levels. Bringing logics into dialogue offers openings to reconsider aquifer conceptualisations, embrace recharge opportunities and appreciate local ways of dealing with groundwater. The message from of this experiment is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to integrate all logics and knowledges in one overarching model or framework but that there are merits when staying with, and respecting, the differences among logics as it offers a potential for mutual learning, reflection and discussion.