Sacred water: rediscovering the ancient hydraulic system of Angkor and traditional knowledge of water management and engineering systems

For decades scientists have supported the disputed hypothesis that the architects of the Khmer s famed Angkor - the world s most extensive mediaeval ‘hydraulic city’ and pre-industrial metropolis – had unwittingly engineered its own demise. Hang Peou’s article, Sacred water, is effectively a revelation which negates such claims. In it the author demonstrates that Angkor’s pre-eminence was made possible by a sophisticated and innovative technology, developed on an unparalleled scale, for resource management and harvesting water for use during the dry season. But the lack of maintenance and expert knowledge some six centuries later led to neglect and the total deterioration of the system. The restoration of this mammoth system would not have been possible without the recovery of knowledge embedded in the community itself. As the author says The Khmer people have lived with water since the creation of Cambodia in the 1st century. Water management is a part of their daily life… [and] was considered to be basic knowledge that everyone understood... Water as a form of life blood, and traditional knowledge about the names and places of its workings which only local people knew, was critical to its rediscovery and rehabilitation within the last decade.