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Good practice Imported

Bali's Subak System — Temple-Governed Rice-Terrace Water Sharing Under Tourism Pressure

Indonesia · Jatiluwih, Tabanan · See the Indonesia profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 40% 47/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Bali's millennium-old subak system — farmer collectives coordinated through water temples — manages irrigation for roughly 19,500 UNESCO-protected hectares of rice terraces, but is losing an estimated 1,000 hectares a year to tourism-driven land conversion and water competition.

19,500 hectares
UNESCO-protected subak-irrigated terrace area
1,000 hectares/year
Agricultural land lost to tourism conversion

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Subak water-temple congregations / Bali Provincial Government (UNESCO World Heritage management)
Period
9th century-present; UNESCO inscription 2012
Keywords
irrigation governance, terraced rice agriculture, water-temple network, agroecology, tourism pressure

Context

Bali's subak is an 11th-century cooperative irrigation institution organised around water temples, where farmer congregations jointly decide planting schedules and water allocation; UNESCO inscribed roughly 19,500 hectares of subak-managed rice terraces as a World Heritage Site in 2012.

Results

Anthropological research documented the subak's pest-suppression role — synchronised fallow scheduling was restored in 1988 after centrally imposed continuous planting caused pest losses of up to 50% in the 1970s–80s — but tourism now consumes an estimated 65% of Bali's fresh water and is linked to roughly 1,000 hectares a year of agricultural land conversion.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Subak water-temple congregations (40–500 households each), Bali Provincial Government (UNESCO World Heritage management)

Conditions for success

  • Tri Hita Karana governance philosophy coordinating spiritual, human and natural balance

Common failure modes

  • Tourism-driven land conversion and falling water tables undercut the economics of continued rice farming

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Data sources

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