ABSTRACT
Increased water scarcity, both generated by water management and climate change, has led to the urgent need to find alternative ways to use water. Discussions on alternative development paths have made it possible to explore indigenous water management practices using new lenses. In 2001, the United Nations University launched an initiative to evaluate the status of traditional water technologies in drylands around the world and concluded that “these approaches – that integrate land and water management – can help protect and restore the capacity of drylands ecosystems to provide key benefits and services. Besides, communities can play a central role in creating effective policies (…) and may need institutional, financial and technological support to do so” (Adeel et al. 2008: 4). Starting from this premise, this chapter examines to what extent some traditional practices could be adapted to current constraints and meet people’s needs better than methods that are currently used. Working on a set of illustrative examples (the resaturation of khetarras and the selection of wells; indigenous water conflict management in the context of current water institutional and legal settings, and the application of old agronomy principles), it demonstrates the feasibility of such a proposal and explores whom it would benefit.
