ABSTRACT
A graver danger still is posed by the lack of capital investment in irrigation works. For example, Tengahpadang and the mountainous regions behind receive heavy and uneven rainfall, with the perennial risk of sudden inundation. This may result either in the siltingup of the ingenious, but simple, system of sluices and over-spills and send sand or mud spewing through the irrigation network, or in sections of the channels being washed away entirely. The frequent rupture or blockage of the ducts can deluge certain fields and damage terracing and, at the same time, leave others dry. On several occasions, whole parts of Subak Langkih were waterless for days on end during critical periods of the cycle. In one tèmpèk (Langkih) alone, in the first sixteen days of December 1971 (admittedly a worse time than most as it is at the beginning of the rainy season), there were four incidents of broken canals and one landslide which destroyed an entire length of conduit. A few years earlier, after a particularly disastrous series of collapses, concrete dividing-blocks and banks were introduced at the worst points, but almost all the system still consists of simple mud and stone channels, which breach easily and require constant, and often difficult, repair. While Balinese indigenous technology is remarkably sophisticated (Adatrechtbundels XV:29-37; Liefrinck 1927:70 & 76-91, or 1969:47-57), actual investment seems to vary greatly between subak and to be far lower than the potential.21 To understand some of the reasons, it is necessary to turn to the structure of the irrigation association itself.
