Water as a Focus for Rural Research

Abstract

Inscribed in the fresh concrete of a self-help water supply scheme in Tanzania's Usambara Mountains are the Swahili words, Uhuru na Maji, which link freedom and water to paraphrase the national motto of freedom and unity. In this way the villagers have emphasized the critical role that water plays in a country where land is plentiful, but well-watered land is limited to a few montane districts and parts of the coast. The villagers' view is shared by the nation, for approximately six out of every hundred shillings of government expenditure is for water-supply development.' More significantly, these expenditures represent a fourth of all funds available for agricultural development.2 Water, therefore can serve as a focus for rural research in a program where national relevance weighs heavily along with scientific interest. The hydrologic cycle is a great natural system and a key to understanding the ecology and ecological changes in the land systems of rural Africa. The modified hydrological cycle that serves human needs is also a technological system of considerable complexity as well as a major social system. Technologically, in Tanzania there are probably over a thousand engineered structures, ranging from drilled wells to township distribution systems, all designed to divert water from the natural system for the use of human society. The social systems are equally diverse, ranging from the system of traditional rights and duties on the irrigation furrows of Kilimanjaro, to a recent requirement in one district that all able-bodied men respond to emergency calls for repairs of a critical water pipeline under penalty of a fine. Thus study of the water-use systems in all their dimensions serves as a bridge between natural and social scientist, academic and technician, university research fellow and civil servant. Tanzania has a tradition of such research, embodied in the work of Clement Gillman, who arrived in German East Africa in 1905 to work on the railroad, eventually becoming its chief engineer. A self-taught geographer, he served after retirement in 1937 as water consultant to the colonial government. His many papers and published writings give testimony not only to his energy, but to the wisdom of a broad approach to water problems.3 Today, at Univer-