Land can sometimes be water

Abstract

In an excerpt from the fictional work “Waterland” (Swift, 1992), the narrator labels water as “Nothing,” implying land and humans as “Something.” This was more of a philosophical expression that can alternatively be inferred from the real-world processes like land reclamation. Land was always associated with value, stability, certainty and utility in contrast to water. Subsequently, early civilizations and modern-day habitations fundamentally removed or controlled water. However, the traditional water systems did this in a more sustainable fashion. Here, water management was a unit of cultural expression of the site-specific challenges faced by people, be it in terms of topography, climate or social hierarchy. One such traditional water system, where land and water assumed identities of being something and nothing respectively is the “Kuttanad Kayalnilam Farming System”: a long-established land-water utilization system that practices paddy farming below sea level for more than a century now in Kerala, India. Positioned at the mouth of a delta, this agrarian landscape deals with the threat of periodically fluctuating water levels resulting in seasonal flooding which adversely influences the livelihood of the inhabitants. Taking the case of the Kuttanad deltaic landscape, this thesis brings to the foreground, a radical departure from the tenets of classical terrestrial centric approaches in geography and landscape architecture for creating a flexible landscape by redefining the relationship between land and water in order to improve the quality of life and space in the delta. The new fluid geographical approach was based on a systematic understanding of the amphibious qualities embedded in the site context through a four-lens approach. The lenses being volatility, hydro-sociality, rhythm and wetness, and reflect respectively: radical emergence of lives and landscapes, the mutual implications of social life and water flows, the pulsating temporality in hydro-social relations and the materialization of water in everyday life (Krause, 2017). Together these lenses led to a site-specific spatial framework for enhancing the amphibious value of landscapes. In the specific case of Kuttanad, this called for a revival of the indigenous relationship between land and water which can be accomplished by moderately restoring the cyclical movement of salt and water. This radical change is envisioned over a large time frame by means of a slow landscape architectural process where nature and humans evolve and adapt to the cycle of salt and water. Furthermore, an adaptive design calendar or water calendar was formulated to guide this slow landscape transformation. The water calendar is a very site-specific tool that can be used for both visual communication and decision making regarding the function, quality and diversity of space and life in a flexible landscape operating within the spatio-temporal context of any deltaic region. Ultimately, it will guide to gradually build a complex narrative of how humans and nature exchange roles between being makers and takers of the landscape over time. On the other hand, the role of the landscape architect is to facilitate this narrative by envisioning a slow landscape architectonic transformation. On the whole, this is a generic approach that can be applied to any other delta facing similar challenges and can be a model for the future direction of flexible and resilient landscapes.