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Like a pond anirrigation tankis an artificial reservoir of any size. Tanks are part of an ancient tradition of harvesting and preserving the local rainfall and water from streams and rivers for later use, primarily for agriculture and drinking water, but also for sacred bathing and ritual. Often a tank was constructed across a slope so to collect and store water by taking advantage of local topography. Tanks are especially critical in regionswithout perennial rainfall with cycle of dry seasons alternating with monsoon seasons. Due to limited storage tanks are unable to meet the demand in case of long dry spells. In extreme hydrological events the failure of one tank infrastructure results in large scale damage due to cascading effect.
Water is revered because of its scarcity in many parts of the world where dry and monsoon seasons alternate and failure of the monsoon season means failure of rainfed agriculture resulting in famine and death while plentiful water replacing irrigations sources is a time of rejoicing. Since ancient times, the design of water storage has been important in India's architecture. As early as 3000 BC sophisticated systems of drains, wells and tanks were built to conserve and utilise water. Tank building as an art form began with the Hindus and developed under Muslim rule. There are approximately 120,000 small-scale tanks, irrigating about 41,200km² in semi-arid areas of India. This constitutes about one third of the total irrigated land in South India.
Typically these tanks were maintained and managed by local farmers through some kind of Water User Associations.Some of these tanks have degenerated and fallen to disuse due to variety of reasons including encroachment onto the inundated areadue to population pressure, faulty land policies, inadequate maintenance of the infrastructure and other social issues.In recent times Governments have started rehabilitating these old systems. Ralegaon Siddhi (India) is an example of a village that revitalised its ancient tank system.
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Irrigation
Sources of Irrigation
Irrigation History +
Sources of Irrigation +
IMPROVING SOIL MOISTURE +
Ponds +
Tanks +
Diversion Weirs +
Dams and Reservoirs +
Groundwater +
Conjunctive Water Use +
Wastewater +
Poor Quality Water +
Application of Irrigation water
Purpose of Irrigation
Instruments and implements of Irrigation
Irrigation Management
Irrigation and environment
Capacity Development
Drainage
- Evaporation tank, or Evaporation pan
- Reservoir, Tank, or Pool
- Balancing tank, Balancing reservoir, Equilising reservoir, or Compensating reservoir
- Elementary surge tank, or Simple surge tank
- Conduit regulator, Surge tank, or Surge chamber
- Multiple surge tanks
- Throttled surge tank, or Restricted orifice surge tank
- Differential surge tank
- Silting tank
- Tail tank
- Surge tank
- Tail tank
- Pressure tank system
- Storm tank
- Sedimentation basin, Sedimentation tank, Settling basin, or Settling tank
- Primary settling tank
- Settling tank
- Detention tank
- Skimming tank
- Aeration pond, Aeration lagoon, Aeration tank
- Septic tank
- Rating tank
- Subsoil flow tank
- Surge tank (simple)
- Three-dimensional flow tank
- Cavitation tank
- Vacuum tank
