Inundation channels
Topic: Water Resources of India: Availability, Use and Conservation · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 3 "Water Resources"
Meaning
Inundation channels are traditional channels in the floodplains of Bengal. When rivers overflowed in the monsoon, the channels carried the floodwater into fields. Besides water, they spread fertile silt (fine soil carried by rivers) over the land, which made the soil richer. In this way a flood became a source of irrigation instead of only damage.
Example
In the Bengal delta, farmers dug channels from overflowing rivers so that monsoon floodwater and silt reached their paddy fields.
Don't confuse with
- Guls and kuls: these are mountain channels in the Western Himalayas that carry glacier and stream water, not river floodwater on plains.
Related concepts
- Ancient hydraulic structures of India
- Kallanai
- Traditional water harvesting systems
- Guls and kuls
- Khadin
- Johad
- Taanka
- Kund
- Ahar-pyne
- Eri