Grand Anicut

The Grand Anicut, also known as the Kallanai , is an ancient dam built on the Kaveri River in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India. around the 1st Century ADcite book
last = Singh
first = Vijay P.
coauthors = Ram Narayan Yadava
title = Water Resources System Operation: Proceedings of the International Conference on Water and Environment
publisher = Allied Publishers
date = 2003
pages = pp. 508
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=Bge-0XX6ip8C&pg=PA508&dq=kallanai&sig=_bvXlOQqAftum2T7p_6McQJHgUk#PPA508,M1
isbn = 817764548X] and is considered one of the oldest water-diversion or water-regulator structures in the world, still in use.cite web
url = http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/traditionwater.pdf
title = "This is the oldest stone water-diversion or water-regulator structure in the world"
accessdate = 2007-05-27] [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9021884/Cauvery-River Cauvery River - Britannica Online Encyclopedia ] ] The Kaveri River forms the boundary between the Erode and Salem districts. The Bhavani River joins the Kaveri at the town of Bhavani, where the Sangameswarar Temple, an important pilgrimage spot in southern India, was built at the confluence of the two rivers. Sweeping past the historic rock of Tiruchirapalli, it breaks into two channels at the island of Srirangam, which enclose between them the delta of Thanjavur (Tanjore), the garden of South India.

The northern channel is called the Kollidam (Kolidam); the other preserves the name of Kaveri, and empties into the Bay of Bengal at Poompuhar, a few hundred miles south of Chennai (Madras). On the seaward face of its delta are the seaports of Nagapattinam and Karikal. Irrigation works have been constructed in the delta for over 2,000 years.

The Kallanai is a massive dam of unhewn stone, 329 metres (1,080 ft) long and 20 metres (60 ft) wide, across the main stream of the Kaveri. The purpose of the dam was to divert the waters of the Kaveri across the fertile Delta region for irrigation via canals. The dam is still in excellent repair, and supplied a model to later engineers, including the Sir Arthur Cotton's 19th-century dam across the Kollidam, the major tributary of the Kaveri. The area irrigated by the ancient irrigation network of which the dam was the centrepiece was 69,000 acres (280 square kilometres). By the early 20th century the irrigated area had been increased to about 1,000,000 acres (4,000 square kilometres).

References

Notes

*1911 [1] "Cauvery River." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 12 Feb. 2007

[http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/494/1187/1600/kallanai-dam-1.jpgPhoto of Grand Anicut]