The Atjehsche Irrigatiedienst — the Atjèhse Irrigation Service — was the Dutch colonial irrigation service in Atjèh, established as a consequence of the irrigation investigation of the engineer Van Tubergen in 1911 and active from 1912 onwards under a B.O.W. (Burgerlijke Openbare Werken, Civil Public Works) engineer. The service had a two-fold task: not only to bring the irrigation water to the rice fields and to distribute it, but also to secure regions against floods — to ward off bandjir-water from the lands destined for rice or other cultivation.
The Van Tubergen Investigation (1911)
In 1911 the engineer Van Tubergen, in his irrigation investigation of Sumatra, also visited the gewest Atjèh and brought out an extensive report, in which he judged very optimistically about the possibility and the use of irrigation works to be constructed in Atjèh. As a consequence, a B.O.W. engineer has been working in the interest of irrigation there since 1912.
The Two-Fold Task
During the ten years since elapsed, the Atjèhse Irrigatiedienst had a two-fold task:
- To bring the irrigation water to the rice fields and to distribute it;
- To secure regions against floods — to ward off bandjir-water from the lands destined for rice or other cultivation.
Naturally, the latter task had, where necessary, to be fulfilled first, before the construction of irrigation works could be gone into.
The Bandjir-Freedom Works
Important results have been achieved on the bandjir-freedom of regions in Atjèh, especially in the area of the Peusangen and Arakoendo rivers, where works for that purpose have been spent to a total of more than half a million guilders, and where the favourable consequence is that some tens of thousands of hectares of sawah-land have been freed from the almost annual excess of flooding, whereby importantly greater harvest-certainty has been obtained.
The Irrigation Works
That the executed works, which more particularly had the purpose of bringing irrigation water to the rice fields for the concerned population and so for the rice cultivation, have yielded less actual results — at least have not brought the progress that, on the ground of the favourable prospects pronounced in the above-mentioned report of the engineer Van Tubergen, were expected — finds its cause partly in the nature of these works and partly in the nature of the population and its cultivation method. The engineer Van Tubergen could, in his relatively short stay in the gewest Atjèh en Onderhoorigheden, hardly gain sufficient insight into the, from the on Java usual method so differently deviating, way of rice cultivation as it is applied in various parts of Atjèh; and only gradually, after the bringing into use of partially completed irrigation works, did the objections come to light that this cultivation method brings with it for a technical irrigation such as is usual on Java.
The Pidië, Meureudoe, and Samalanga Exception
In the regions of Atjèh where the native irrigation was in sufficient state — mainly in Pidië, Meureudoe, and Samalanga — the need for technical works was less pressing, and the interference of the Irrigatiedienst was limited to the construction of one single dam.
The Future
The costs of the irrigation works have, up to now, with an unimportant exception, come wholly at the expense of the budget of Nederlandsch-Indië; but it lies for the hand that, if not on the whole field of irrigation, at least on that of the secondary and tertiary works in the not directly administered area, a grateful field of work lies for the Dienst der Openbare Landschapswerken, which has indeed already begun, but is not yet sufficiently equipped and perhaps has insufficient money means to go further in this direction. One may, however, expect that, once the urge to rice cultivation as a source of wealth has awakened, the Landschappen will find the means to provide for the needs of this service, and that, in the long run, by those who profit from the great irrigation works, the interest and amortisation of the sums to be spent will also be raised, so that the execution thereof need not be delayed by the money-need of the Dutch Indies government.
Significance
The Atjehsche Irrigatiedienst is the principal Dutch colonial irrigation service in Atjèh, and the principal instrument of the post-war Dutch program for the development of the rijstbouw as the principal future export crop of Atjèh. The two-fold task — irrigation and bandjir-freedom — and the more than half a million guilders spent on the Peusangen and Arakoendo bandjir-freedom works, together constitute the principal Dutch investment in the post-war economic development of Atjèh.
See Also
- Van Tubergen
- Rijstbouw
- Bandjir
- Sawah
- Peusangan-rivier
- Arakoendo-rivier
- Peusangan
- Arakoendo
- Pidië
- Meureudoe
- Samalanga
- Keudjroen-loeeng
- De Rijkdom van Atjeh (1923)
- 1911
- 1912
- 1923
Source
De Rijkdom van Atjeh, uitgegeven door het Atjeh-Instituut, Amsterdam, 1923. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-110-De_rijkdom_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 20–23.