ABSTRACT
Significant cultural landscapes that characterise the various bio-geographical zones and cultural regions within India have evolved in association with a plenitude of historic water systems and associated hydraulic structures, from as early as the third-millennium bce. The extensive range of historic water systems identified in India evolved as an expression and embodiment of synergetic relationships between the extraordinary diversity of the natural resource base and the inhabitants of the various regions of the country. Traditional water systems in most parts of India are predominantly based on harvesting, storage and distribution of seasonal rainwater runoff and glacial snowmelt, and the utilisation of groundwater drawn from aquifers or palaeo-channels. The introduction of the qanat water system in the lateritic and basaltic part of the Deccan was an important factor that stimulated development in the 15th–17th centuries in the area. The qanat systems of the Bidar Fort are arguably the earliest and deepest of India.
