Agriculture accounts for the major part of indigenous water use, and while the same is true for non-indigenous water use, the reliance on local agriculture is relatively more important to indigenous communities. Not only can water be equated with life, but also with local food and indigenous farming practices.  How can agricultural water, including deliberate irrigation as well as rainwater harvesting practices, support the cultural and spiritual ways of life that Indigenous Peoples choose to lead? 

There is a vast literature on "indigenous technical knowledge" which has helped elevate traditional knowledge and farming practices in the eyes of Western technical experts.  Agronomists and engineers have learned to respect the solutions devised by ancestral native scientists, and more recently, the emerging sciences of ecology and nutrition are discovering that indigenous farming and food traditions are intricately adapted to local conditions.  But by placing indigenous knowledge into Western categories, the cultural context is lost.  Corns, beans and squash comprise the traditional family of foods for indigenous Puebloan pepoles of the American Southwest.  Describing the associated irrigation and farming practices gives only an incomplete picture of what agriculture "means" within the cultural context.  The plants are considered to be like family members, and farming is a spiritual practice as well as a physical activity. Understanding how water is used in agriculture, and assessing the producitivity of that water, needs to take into account the diverse and interactive ways that farming is connected to a cultural way of life.  These dynamics are the subject of our project on multifunctional agriculture.
. 
Rivers, lakes, springs and wetlands, are also much more than physical phenomena.  Flowing water connects people with Mother Earth and spiritual forces,  When a river is "managed" through diverting water into a canal, for example, or building a storage reservoir, there is a larger set of considerations beyond the physicality of the water itself or the legal water rights as determined by human laws.  There are also natural and spiritual laws to consider. While the specifics vary across cultures, what is constant is the recognition and observance of spiritual laws and customs.  There is always a larger reality beyond the human domain.

The way water is managed and the uses to which the water is applied (e.g., what kind of farming; what selection of crops) can support or undermine the cultural health of Indigenous Peoples.  Understanding the cultural context is a first step in designing water development strategies that can enhance the cultural and economic well-being of indigenous communities.


Resources

Documents from the Water and Culture Institute

• Paper on Irrigation Development and Indigenous Peoples, by David Groenfeldt, outlines ways in which irrigation development can support indigenous values and traditional lifestyles. 
• Paper on Indigenous Irrigation and Sustainable Development in Asia, by David Groenfeldt, reports on indigenous irrigations systems in Sri Lanka and Pakistan and efforts to improve their productivity, while respecting local management traditions.

Indigenous Food Systems Network seeks "to carry the Indigenous voice in the various meetings, conferences and discussions that have taken place within the food security movement."

The Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment (CINE) is an independent resource created by Canada's Aboriginal leaders and located at McGill University. A recent project presents video documentaries of indigenous food systems.

IWMI-TATA Water Policy Briefing, Rethinking Tribal Development: Water Management Strategies for Revitalizing Tribal Agriculture in Central India, 2007.