Abstract

Every June through September, the inhabitants of South Asia welcome and celebrate the southwest monsoons. The monsoons are the lifeline of the region but also are a major threat, inspiring societies to devise mechanisms to both harness their potential and subvert the damage they cause. This chapter analyzes prehistoric and historical responses to the unpredictable aspects of monsoons, with special attention to the societal contexts of rurality and urbanity and how conserving seasonal rainwater is crucial to sustenance but that an excess of that water can cause significant destruction. Poets of the past and the present allude to the vagaries of the monsoons, reflecting a social consciousness of monsoonal deceits. Even today, it is nearly impossible to predict the onset, amplitude, and specific location of monsoon rain, illustrating the agency of these abundant seasonal rains.

Rainfall is fundamental to the circulation and recharging of the freshwater surface reserves that have sustained humans for as long as we have existed, and it is almost magical to watch the rain fall from the skies, moisten the earth, and nourish myriad life forms. Archaeological and historical evidence attests to ancient societies’ understanding of annual rainfall patterns and how water flowed across the landscape. This knowledge helped them successfully manage rainwater both for increased agricultural production and for mitigating the effects of flooding on settlements (e.g., Fletcher et al. 2008; Harrower 2016; Marcus and Stanish 2006). Annual and seasonal variability in rainfall patterns continues to present a challenge to human endeavors for sustainable modern societies (e.g., Cook et al. 2010; Mishra et al. 2012), given that even today, farmers in about half of the world still depend on rains or other forms of precipitation (FAO 2016).

The term monsoon, from the Arabic mausim, refers to seasonal reversal of wind direction due to differential temperature and pressure that results in significant rainfall in large parts of tropical and subtropical climatic regions of the Earth (Krishnamurti 2019; Roy 2017). Monsoons are usually classified into regional systems such as Asian, African, and American; other regions, such as large parts of Europe and the southeastern United States, also receive pronounced seasonal rainfall that structures the agricultural rhythm of these regions. The South Asian monsoon system is one of the most prominent regional monsoon systems not only because of the duration and intensity of these winds but also because of the sheer percentage of the world population that depends on them. Most parts of India receive 75 to 80 percent of their annual precipitation during the southwest monsoon, which usually hits the western coast of India by the first week of June each year and covers the entire subcontinent with moisture-laden clouds within about a month. Areas in the far south and southeast of India, however, receive most of their share of rainfall during the cooler months, from November to December, through the retreating monsoons.

The monsoon breathes life into the subcontinent—it irrigates the fields, replenishes the aquifers, and feeds the rivers; it also causes seasonal flooding of the kind that is both welcome and worrisome (e.g., Smith and Mohanty 2018). One of the earliest testimonies to rain’s centrality to life and society in the Indian subcontinent can be found in the Rig Veda, parts of which were composed between 1400 and 1000 BCE (Jamison and Brereton 2014:5). The Rig Veda is a compilation of hymns dedicated to animistic deities, including one invoking Parjanya, the thunder god, the rain bearer:

The hymn implores the thunder god for rain, which is equated with abundance and richness—“inundate Heaven and Earth with ghee”—especially since a society that thrived on pastoralism also valued lush pasturelands and watering holes. Archaeological evidence attests that agriculture began in different parts of the Indian subcontinent between the seventh and first millennia BCE and also depended on the monsoon (e.g., Fuller et al. 2007; Harvey 2007; Singh 1996; Tewari et al. 2006). By about 3,500 years ago, the Indian subcontinent was dotted with communities with varying degrees of subsistence dependence on agriculture and pastoralism that was, in turn, dependent on seasonal rains. This would explain why rain is celebrated for infusing earth with fertility, not only in this particular hymn but in many others and in association with other Rig Vedic deities such as Indra, the lord of war and storm. Nevertheless, for contemporary societies, the desire for rain paralleled the fear of excess rain. This likely explains why the Parjanya hymn urges the deity to practice restraint after it has rained sufficiently.

Variability in rainfall across both time and space is a key feature of the monsoon. It has always been difficult, if not impossible, to predict how much rain a specific year will bring, how much rain a region in the Indian subcontinent will experience in a year, or whether one year of drought will be followed by another (Webster et al. 1998). Notions of “averages” belie the challenges of amplitude in any particular monsoon season: while the average rainfall in a particular year may fall within the normal range, if all of the rain falls within a short time span, it will likely result in erosion and flooding, which is detrimental to both rural and urban life (Gadgil and Gadgil 2006). The predicament of rainfall has been characterized by Naomi Miller (2011:310) as “predictable unpredictability,” but monsoons have a particular cyclical intensity in regions in which there are few alternative sources of surface water such as rivers. Consecutive years of monsoon deficit can lead to loss of life due to lack of potable water, to scarcity of supply or inflation of prices of agricultural produce, and to follow-on effects in which failed crops adversely impact the market for consumer goods.

An appraisal of how ancient societies dealt with the inter-annual variability of the monsoon can serve two purposes: first, to know how societies either succumbed to or built resilience to seasonal rainfall variability, and second, to comprehend the range of human-environment interactions. In addition to the monsoon, people in South Asia also harnessed rivers, aquifers, and springs, especially during dry months or years of drought, in ways that complemented—but never superceded—their dependence on rainfall.

The Northwestern Subcontinent in the Harappan (Indus) Period

The oldest urban society in the Indian subcontinent, the Harappan civilization (ca. 3300–1500 BCE), provides a useful case study for understanding the nuances of human-environment interaction in a topographically and climatically diverse region of South Asia. Evidence for the Harappan civilization is found in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India—primarily in what can be characterized as semiarid regions based on the amount of rainfall received. While Harappan cultural integration is conspicuous in the material culture of these cities—such as brick size ratios, weights, measures, beads, seals and script, ceramics, and settlement layout—certain distinct regional cultural and consumption patterns are also discernible, indicating the diverse nature of the Harappan cultural fabric (Chase 2014a). The Harappans developed complex social and economic systems, with extended trade networks that linked their cities with regions as far away as Mesopotamia and Egypt (Kenoyer et al. 2013; Lahiri 1992; Ratnagar 2004). A high degree of craft specialization and standardization is a hallmark of the Harappan assemblage, which would have been impossible without a reliable subsistence base.

The location and distribution of Harappan settlements suggest that climatic and geographic considerations likely informed the shift of preceding Neolithic settlements eastward to the Indus and the Ghagghar-Hakra. Most pre-Harappan and Early Harappan (ca. 3300–2600 BCE) settlements are located in western Pakistan, where winter precipitation from the Western Disturbances plays just as important a role as the summer monsoons (Spate and Learmonth 2017 [1954]:46–71). The Western Disturbances are extra-tropical storms that are part of the Westerlies rising over the Mediterranean and traveling across West Asia; they bring rainfall to the northwestern parts of South Asia, particularly northern and western Pakistan and northern India, as well as significant snow to the Himalayas (Dimri et al. 2015). The melting ice in spring feeds the rivers and rivulets, which continue to be critical for the sustenance of agrarian and pastoral societies in the region. This region also falls along the edges of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), which shifts north from the Equator during summer months, bringing significant monsoonal rainfall to parts of northern Pakistan but only marginal rainfall in south and southwestern Pakistan. The Harappans, therefore, utilized both the summer and the winter rainfall in the semiarid landscapes of the northwestern Indian subcontinent.

Most urban centers of the Mature Harappan era (ca. 2600–1900 BCE) are located along the Indus and Ghagghar-Hakra Rivers. These perennial rivers emerge from Himalaya glaciers and are fed by monsoonal rain, a combination of inputs that resulted in spring-summer flooding that required agriculturalists and urban dwellers alike to construct labor-intensive water management infrastructure. The two archetypal sites of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa were built in the vicinity of rivers to fulfill people’s water needs; however, the seasonal vagaries of these same rivers prompted the Harappans to settle on topographically higher surfaces or on top of platforms constructed to raise their residences above the immediate surroundings. At Mohenjo-Daro, a large number of wells provided urban inhabitants with their daily water needs; most of the wells were lined with bricks to prevent the earth from collapsing and the loss of water from absorption (Jansen 1989). These wells were constructed as part of residential quarters associated with platforms and drains, suggesting their use in what appear to be bathrooms and kitchens. In some of the other large cities of the Mature Harappan era, such as Harappa, Ganweriwala, and Rakhigarhi, remains of wells are not as ubiquitous; it appears that people there harnessed the rivers and seasonal rivulets along which the cities were established for personal and agricultural use.

The Harappans devised multiple ways of managing water in response to the local hydroclimatic conditions of the diverse landscape they inhabited—from constructing earthen bunds to capture floodwaters in the floodplains of perennial and seasonal rivers to digging wells and carving out cisterns or tanks to store surface runoff for long-term use. Shereen Ratnagar (1986) argues that the Harappans instituted labor-intensive means of irrigation to produce agricultural surplus sufficient to support large cities in a high-gradient landscape with large, capricious rivers that were difficult to control. Unfortunately, material evidence of large-scale, labor-intensive irrigation has not been archaeologically recovered; this can be attributed to the changing topography of the Indus floodplain since the time of the Harappans, as well as to the anthropogenic alteration of the landscape for modern construction and agricultural projects.

In the absence of direct archaeological remains of irrigation technologies, archaeobotanical studies help us reconstruct the dietary patterns of the Harappans as well as probable agricultural and irrigation practices. Cultivation of the various subsistence and commercial crops in the vastly different terrains and climatic zones of the Harappan realm necessitated devising adaptive strategies in response to local/regional climate (Petrie and Bates 2017) and socioeconomic needs (Miller 2006). Faunal and palaeobotanical remains from Harappan sites in western India indicate that the inhabitants expanded their subsistence strategies to include winter crops of wheat and barley as well as summer crops of millets and pulses, with a heavy reliance on the latter given that the region receives much less winter precipitation than summer precipitation (Costantini 1990; Fuller and Madella 2001; Kajale 1996; Meadow 1989; Weber et al. 2010, 2011). People also complemented their plant-based diet with a variety of animals, such as cattle, buffalo, goat, and sheep (Chakraborty et al. 2018; Chase 2014b; Goyal 2013; Goyal et al. 2013; Saraswat and Pokharia 2002, 2003).

The Harappans also established a reliable system of exchange across their network of sites spread over the Indus plains and beyond, which may have been used to transport food grains or the knowledge and technology to grow them. Ratnagar (1986:153), however, doubts that large cities were fed primarily through grain imports. Pending further research into palaeobotanical remains from urban as well as rural Harappan sites, it can be asserted that the eastward movement of the Harappans allowed them to connect with agricultural and agro-pastoral communities in northern, western, and central parts of India, which provided access to summer crops such as rice and millets and their incorporation into the Harappan diet. This movement was likely motivated by an increasing demand for agricultural production as well as relatively wet climatic conditions in northwestern India that intensified around 5.0–4.4 kya BP, providing the context for the establishment of major Harappan cities (Dixit et al. 2018).

Among the Harappan sites in India, Dholavira emerged as a truly exceptional locale, with the characteristic features of a Harappan city manifest in its layout and the artifact assemblage (Bisht 2007b). It spans more than fifty hectares, with about 20 percent of the area devoted to conserving and storing water (Bisht 2007a: 9). Dholavira, like other Harappan sites in the Gujarat region, receives most of its rainfall during the summer monsoons, but a heavy reliance on wells was precluded by the high salinity of its subsurface water. The people at Dholavira developed an intricate water management system by building embankments to divert monsoonal streams into a series of interconnected rock-cut cisterns for year-long use (Bisht 2002, 2003, 2004). The primary role of the reservoirs at Dholavira was likely to serve the urban core, although small-scale wet farming may have been practiced within or around the fortified settlement.

The water-aware constructions of the Indus culture allowed for a thriving economy for nearly a millennium, but by ca. 1900 BCE the Indus cities and many smaller sites became depopulated. Interestingly, while the growth and maintenance of Indus cities have not often been linked to environment, with the exception of Gurdip Singh and colleagues (1990), their decline has (Misra 1984; cf. Possehl 1997). Desertion of cities has been attributed to a number of natural factors: flooding of the Indus, as gauged from silt layers found in excavations at Mohenjo-Daro (Raikes and Dales 1977, 1986); changing course of the River Yamuna, causing floods, such as at Kalibangan (Raikes 1968); changing course or drying up of the Ghaggar-Hakra River, which resulted in the desertion of Harappan sites in Cholistan (Mughal 1990); and a change in summer and winter precipitation, causing arid climatic conditions in western and northwestern India (Singh 1971; see also Sarkar et al. 2016; Wright et al. 2008).

Palynological and palaeobotanical studies reconstructing the nuances of human-environment interaction in the context of Holocene rainfall variability and related extreme climatic events are contributing to the discussion of Harappan adaptations to changing environment that may have led to de-urbanization in the Greater Indus region between ca. 2000 and 1500 BCE. At a number of Late Harappan sites in western India, for instance, the Harappans increasingly preferred drought-resistant crops, such as sorghum, and other millets, over staples like wheat (Chanchala 1994; Ghosh and Lal 1963; Reddy 1997; Goyal et al. 2013; Weber 1991). Some argue that these changes are indicative of adaptation in response to a significant drop in monsoonal precipitation (Pokharia et al. 2011; Giosan et al. 2012; Goyal et al. 2013).

Not all Harappan areas experienced the same intensity of arid conditions; in fact, there are places where there was an increase in annual precipitation (Kenoyer 1991; Weber 1992). In fact, Steven A. Weber (1991) established that millets had been part of the Harappan food culture since its earliest days and that they were especially prominent at sites in Haryana, Gujarat, and Baluchistan (see also Pokharia et al. 2014). Rice, which relied heavily on the success of the southwest monsoon, became an important component of the Harappan diet only in the Late Harappan period (Weber 1992; Kenoyer 1998). Plant remains from Harappa and Rojdi, Weber (1999) argues, suggest shifts in cereal use that related to broadening the subsistence base and intensifying agriculture but had little to do with environmental change. At Harappa, barley was the dominant grain in both the early and late levels, while wheat was the preferred grain during the Mature Harappan era. Similarly, at Rojdi, millets continued to be important in both Mature and Late Harappan levels, although among the millets, occurrence of finger millet and little millet plummeted during the late period while foxtail millet emerged as the grain of choice (Weber 1999:822). The environmental and resource needs of the crops that replaced the other grains must have remained unchanged; therefore, it is unlikely that climate change caused the shift visible in the archaeological record. Faunal data from Kanmer reveal a diversified animal-use strategy but a reduced significance of secondary products and greater dependence on stock raising and pastoralism for subsistence in the Late Harappan period, both of which reflect greater strain on agricultural production, probably due to a drier climate (Goyal 2013; Goyal et al. 2013).

In the last few decades, scholarly interest in monsoonal variability and change in relation to ancient human societies has paralleled the increasing literature on global climate change and human responses to it. Researchers addressing this issue for Harappan societies at both the micro- (site-level and regional) and macro- (interregional) scale together have agreed that there seems to have been a gradual change in subsistence strategies involving both plants and animals toward the end of the Mature Harappan era, which continued in the Late Harappan period concomitantly with de-urbanization. Rita P. Wright and her colleagues (2008) point out that around the Middle/Late Holocene, there was a change in the ratio of monsoonal to non-monsoonal rain in the Indus floodplain, which parallels the abandoning of Harappan cities and a shift of settlements in the Late Harappan phase to the eastern, wetter areas of the Upper Ganga-Yamuna River system. This assertion has been challenged, at least in the eastern areas, by other scholars (Madella and Fuller 2006; Petrie et al. 2017), who argue that the Harappans were master adapters and can provide insight into how an ancient civilization coped with climate change. It can even be argued that Harappans gradually shifted to the agricultural practice of cultivating in both the summer and winter seasons, which reduced their vulnerability in case of variable hydroclimatic events, particularly at the sites east and south of the Harappan core (Weber 1999). But a number of other recent studies suggest a strong correlation between extreme monsoonal variability and the end of India’s first urbanism, accompanied by higher densities of smaller settlements in the Gangetic plains (Dixit et al. 2018; Green and Petrie 2018; Kathayat et al. 2017).

Peninsular India in the Early Historic Period

In peninsular India, which is devoid of perennial rivers and is characterized by higher temperatures and longer spells of dry months, the short window of receiving most of the annual rainfall creates a special incentive for people living in its arid and semiarid zones to capture and conserve water from the monsoons. The region’s rugged and undulating topography has made it possible for people to devise multiple ways of saving surface runoff from the monsoons for use over dry months. In addition, harnessing water from streams and rivers, digging wells, and constructing small farm ponds are common water-procuring strategies across the Indian subcontinent. Scholars have established that the earliest human settlements in peninsular India depended on water collected in natural depressions and rock pools whose capacities they augmented over time (Boivin et al. 2002). In some parts of India, such as eastern India and the middle Ganga plains, monsoon showers tend to create a situation of excess water, resulting in widespread floods in areas that over time have come to be densely populated. The diverse hydroclimatic conditions across India and within a region during any particular year of monsoons prompted people to engineer more than one way of tackling both the excess and the deficit of summer rainfall. With this understanding of the general trends in seasonal and inter-annual climatic variability, people were able to practice extensive and intensive agriculture, which sustained a wave of urbanism in northern and central India in the first millennium BCE.

Inscriptions and the remains of monumental waterworks that survived through the centuries have informed our understanding of how people managed both perennial and seasonal water. We come across rulers repairing canals, cisterns, and embankments or dams after damage from extreme hydroclimatic events, primarily through inscriptions from Bhubaneswar in eastern India (Kharavela’s first-century BCE inscription; Sahu 1984) and Junagarh in western India (Rudradaman’s second-century CE inscription and Skandagupta’s fifth-century CE inscription; Fleet 1888). In fact, the inscriptions at Junagarh include vivid descriptions of the excess rain during the monsoon season (“the season of clouds” [Fleet 1888:63]), which led to the swelling of the river, causing the ancient dam to breach. Some have argued that this dam was not entirely artificial and that parts of it incorporated a natural escarpment (Shaw and Sutcliffe 2003:90). At both instances of dam breach, rulers, local officials, and elites arranged for the dam to be repaired, since the dam and the associated lake (Sudarshana Lake) were crucial to the sustenance and prosperity of the city—not only during the dry months of the year but also during years of drought. These inscriptions, like the many remains of damaged and abandoned embankments, are a testimony to the damage severe monsoonal rains could cause on resource-intensive water infrastructure.

State-sponsored or supported water projects continued from these early to modern times, but we also find instances of individual or collective action to conserve surface runoff, especially in the context of religious institutions. For instance, at the Buddhist monastic establishment at Kanheri in western India (Ray 1994), we find a large number of rock-cut cisterns located outside residential caves. The water for these cisterns was collected through narrow channels dug into the basalt hill surface that carried the surface runoff from more elevated areas to the cisterns (figure 3.1). During the monsoon season, a steady stream flows through the hills with caves on either side. It is likely that the monks and visitors augmented the water supply from the cisterns with the stream during the rainy season but depended largely on the cisterns during the dry months of the year. This system of conserving rainwater provided water for everyday use by the monks residing at the caves in Kanheri and the devotees who visited the site. In fact, a number of these cisterns were donations from lay followers, according to the inscriptions that are usually associated with the cisterns (Gokhale 1991). Similar cisterns also have been found at the Early Historic monastic caves in the vicinity of the ancient dam at Junagarh (Shaw and Sutcliffe 2003:92–95), illustrating a widespread multi-scalar approach to water capture. Buddhist institutions also played an active role in constructing, maintaining, and managing agricultural irrigation works, as seen at the site of Sanchi (third century BCE–twelfth century CE; Shaw and Sutcliffe 2003). The engineering consisted primarily of an earthen embankment constructed across a valley to collect surface runoff from the elevated areas in the valley (catchment area) and to store this water for irrigation purposes during the dry months.

People in Early Historic South Asia addressed rainfall variability not only with irrigation technologies but also through spatial and administrative organization. At the ancient city of Sisupalgarh in the Odisha province of eastern India, for example, people built a city with high ramparts and gates and with monumental architecture starting around the sixth century BCE. Monica L. Smith and Rabindra K. Mohanty (2018) illustrate the subsistence strategies of urban-rural labor and trade involved at every step of agriculture in which monsoons facilitated abundant rice cultivation while also presenting the challenge of “too much” water during seasonal rainfall and cyclonic storms. Since the timing of agricultural tasks such as field preparation, construction of field bunds, transplantation of rice, pest management, weeding, and harvest depended on the intensity, duration, and frequency of rainfall in any given year, it was important that the fields were located within walking distance from the city so that urban labor could easily redirect itself during specific times in the agricultural cycle. Predictable flood events would have easily been managed by this flexibility of labor flow; at times of extreme climatic events, such as cyclones, cities like Sisupalgarh relied on their existing medium- and long-distance trade networks that hitherto circulated non-agricultural goods to provision food for city dwellers from variable landscapes (Smith and Mohanty 2018:1329–1330).

Peninsular India in the Medieval Period

By the thirteenth century CE, polities with large territories emerged in the western and southern subcontinent, concomitant with shifts in agricultural practices that had a far-reaching impact on the economy, the polity, and society. Inscriptions indicate a process of agricultural expansion through irrigation technology rather than through intensification proper (cf. Morrison 1994:142) from the sixth to the twelfth centuries CE. In addition to rulers and elites, temples were significant in organizing the creation and distribution of agricultural surplus. More significant than construction perhaps was maintenance of the structures that were already built. Ruling elites, prosperous individuals, and local assemblies all contributed to this task (Mate 1998:35–51). Regional monarchies integrated the countryside into their political and economic networks, sometimes making investments indirectly through local temples, which then undertook the actual construction and management (e.g., Stein 1960).

People’s responses to topographic, climatic, soil, and ecological variability across the Indian subcontinent during the medieval period involved increased reliance on iron technology in agriculture, use of manure, and hydraulic infrastructure (Chakravarti 2008) while existing technologies of rainwater management such as embankments, dams, and reservoirs continued in use. Historical and archaeological research shows that the reservoirs of this period were considerably larger than those from earlier times and were a function of expanding and intensifying agriculture and also of the introduction of new cultigens in these areas based on cultural dietary preferences increasingly focused on rice (Bauer and Morrison 2008; Morrison 1995; Smith 2006). A typical rain-fed reservoir in peninsular India in medieval times operated on the same principle as the ones discussed in the context of Sanchi earlier in this chapter. Surface runoff from a catchment area such as a valley was collected behind earthen embankments sometimes dressed with stone. Some embankments form part of a series of connected reservoirs; the waste weir or spillway of the upstream reservoir allows excess water to flow out and fill the one downstream.

Embankments stored seasonal water and made it accessible for personal consumption, such as for cleaning and washing, while also recharging subsurface water levels and keeping the adjacent soil moist. A reservoir as an embankment with one or more sluice gates and canals, in contrast, was able to make an impact on the wider landscape by transporting water to distant fields compared to more static percolation tanks. These reservoirs represent a more complex social phenomenon because of the need for consensus on issues such as the height of the embankment and the waste weir, the number and placement of sluice gates, the maintenance of the reservoir, and the terms and conditions of water use. The heights of the embankment and the waste weir dictate the capacity of the reservoir; a higher capacity demands that a larger area of arable land behind the embankment be inundated with water for part of a year, putting it out of use for those months. Building reservoirs is a labor-intensive exercise; while there is no direct evidence regarding labor acquisition, conditions, and organization, social scientists suggest that coercive labor may have played a significant role in such construction projects (Shah 2008).

Within peninsular India, three case studies—Tamil Nadu, Vijayanagara, and the Raichur Doab—provide insight into the ways people actively managed monsoonal rains through a proliferation of reservoir construction beginning around the sixth century CE. Inscriptions show that in this period, people intensified agriculture by expanding irrigation to new areas, facilitating and facilitated by the rise of regional polities and cultures (Singh 1994; Talbot 2001; Kapur 2002). Most of these inscriptions, written in Sanskrit, record royal land grants to Brahmanas (the highest social caste and religious functionaries) or non-royal and royal gifts made to different religious establishments.

Conclusion

Although individuals and households can exercise their agency through the capture of rainfall at a local scale, the coordination of efforts through centralized labor investment clearly made a significant difference in the successful long-term sustainability of agriculture and settlement life in the monsoon region of South Asia. Today, despite the technological advancements that permit the construction of massive hydroelectric dams and elaborate water-pumping capacities, the increasing reliance on water from confined aquifers to meet water requirements of commercially and culturally popular crops mean we are gradually limiting our ability to respond to climatic variability, especially in cases of a failed monsoon, given that peninsular rivers and the groundwater table are also largely monsoon fed.

The case studies from South Asia’s past demonstrate the various, albeit limited, approaches people adopted when confronted with even slight variations in rainfall patterns. The variables impacting the choice of response include not only the local topography and climate but also the socioeconomic and political milieu of the respective societies. These and other variables continue to determine localized responses to monsoonal variability in South Asia today (e.g., Roxy et al. 2017). For instance, rural and urban societies share the same monsoonal landscape and yet respond differently to monsoonal excess.

The global incidence of floods and droughts seems to have increased dramatically in the last century or so. Scientific studies stand united in their verdict that humans have been the dominant agents of this change by introducing significant anomalies that have modified the temperatures of lands and oceans, with a significant impact on global and regional precipitation systems. Activities that constitute the largest share of carbon emissions include thermal electricity generation, industrial production, transportation, deforestation, cultivation of crops, and rearing livestock—activities that have continued unabated, with progressive intensity, over most of human history. Despite humans being chief actors of this change, it has been extremely challenging for scientists, governments, and people in general to eliminate or even fully mitigate the destruction and damage caused by both routine and extreme rainfall events.

References