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The region to the west of the Aravalli Mountain in northwestern India has been facing acute shortage of water right from the beginning of the modern civilization. Sudden disappearance of the Vedic Sarasvati River and development of paucity of water in the region were the main reasons behind migration and collapse of the Vedic civilization and subsequently, the Harappan civilization in this part the earth. Of course, a good source of ground water in the region was known to our ancestors but its presences in the form of scattered isolated pockets that too at a great depth had always been a big problem. As a result what ever thin human population that occupied the desert region, had no choice except to depend entirely on rain water. People of this area, prone to frequent draught and famine conditions, evolved some indigenous techniques to harvest rain water for their day to day domestic as well as agricultural needs and preserved it for whole of the year. In addition to this they developed devices to recharge the ground water of the area with the rain water harvesting. The present paper describes various techniques traditionally being adopted by the local people in arid and semiarid regions of the great Thar Desert to harvest and store the rain water. These devices ranging from micro to macro levels have been evolved: (i) for the village as a whole like "Tankas", "Nadies", check-dams, "Anne- cuts" , and intricate system of surface barriers and canals constructed to divert rain water from hilly terrain to the reservoir sites.(ii) for a particular community or separate systems for different communities, like "Orans" with a "Tankas" in the centre and covered tanks to protect the stored water from the evaporation, (iii) for family to meet out its domestic needs like roof top rain water harvesting and storing in the tanks constructed in the basements, (iv) for the live stock like open small reservoirs only and (v) for the agriculture purposes like big reservoirs, "Anne-cuts", check dams and "Khadins". These devices in use traditionally in the northwestern arid and semi-arid parts of India need recognition and adoption to protect and conserve this vital natural resource for future generations.
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