Appropriate irrigation practices have

278 Salutary influence of irrigation inundation or submersion, especially in the deltaic regions of Chao Phraya, Mekong, and
Red rivers. All credit goes to people who ensured optimal supply of water of both natural rainfall and supplementary means ranging from the crude weirs on the stream- bed, and the retention ponds for floodwater to the irrigation dams and canal systems.
The pursuit of technological evolution was in the first stage accomplished by the organization of local people who contributed their labor to the construction and maintenance of the irrigation works (Ng,
1979). Thus, there were two types of wet rice cultivation – one entirely dependent on the natural rainfall (as in the dry zone of
Irrawaddy valley) and the other on supplementary water as in Menam
(Thailand), Palembang area (Sumatra, and lower Mekong (Cambodia and South
Vietnam) in the form of smaller scale man- made irrigation systems of varying degrees of sophistication (Frayer, 1970). Evidently elaborate irrigation and drainage systems were constructed and maintained by people of well organized and disciplined hydraulic society under a centralized political authority,
as opposed to hydro-agriculture representing only minor irrigation works of purely local responsibility (Frayer, 1970). In the pre- modern times, the waterworks of small scale existed in the interior valleys of Burma
(Myanmar) and Thailand, east-Central Java and Bali, parts of Sumatra in Indonesia, and
Luzon in the Philippines (Fisher, 1966;
Tilman, Needless to emphasize the fact that the settlement process and the evolution of political power in many parts of Southeast
Asia were linked to the agricultural prosperity ensuing the irrigation system, a tradition that sustained all through the period of history. A discussion on different methods of irrigation, variously developed in relation to the rainfall regimes and relief patterns,
would thus be of much historical and geographical interest for the students of
Southeast Asia. Irrigation practices as adopted in Burma (Myanmar, Thailand,
Cambodia, Vietnam and in some parts of archipelago, obviously form the theme of this study.
Myanmar: Environment-
related irrigation
techniques
Myanmar, which was called Burma prior to, is endowed with avast territory drained by two major perennial rivers, Irrawaddy and Salween, originating in the snow-capped
Tibetan plateau region. The regional
An advanced system of large-scale
irrigation and water control as a state-
organized system was developed on
the basis of the techniques of
agricultural hydraulics.
Needless to emphasize the fact that
the settlement process and the
evolution of political power in many

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