Subak: The Water Temples and Rice Terraces Behind Bali’s Landscape

The rice terraces of Bali are among the most photographed landscapes in Asia. They are also a piece of engineering and a social institution. Each group of fields that shares a water source is run by its farmers as a cooperative called a subak, and the subaks are linked to one another through temples. UNESCO listed the system in 2012 under the title Cultural Landscape of Bali Province: the Subak System as a Manifestation of the Tri Hita Karana Philosophy.

How it works

Bali is a volcanic island with steep slopes and short rivers. Water has to be taken from high up and led through tunnels, weirs and channels to terraces cut into the hillsides. The system developed from the ninth century, and a written reference to it survives from the eleventh.

A subak has between about 50 and 400 farmers, who draw from the same dam or spring and decide together when to plant, when to flood the fields and when to leave them dry. An elected head directs the work. In 2019 there were an estimated 1,559 subaks on the island.

The decisions are taken in temples. Every subak has its own shrine in the fields, and the subaks along a river meet at a regional water temple. At the top of the hierarchy is Pura Ulun Danu Batur, on the rim of the crater lake of Batur, whose goddess is held to be the source of all the island’s springs. Offerings travel up to the lake and holy water comes down.

The Balinese name for the principle behind it is Tri Hita Karana, the three causes of well-being: harmony between people, with nature and with the gods.

What the temples do

The religious calendar has a practical effect. By agreeing to plant and harvest at the same time, neighbouring subaks leave their fields fallow together, which deprives pests of food over a wide area. By staggering the schedule between upstream and downstream groups, they share the water in the dry months.

This was demonstrated the hard way. In 1971 the government’s rice programme reached Bali, and farmers were told to grow new varieties continuously and to ignore the temple calendar. By 1974 there were reports of chaos in water scheduling and of outbreaks of pests, and in the late 1970s some areas lost up to half their crop. The American anthropologist Stephen Lansing showed with computer models that the temple schedules had been close to the best possible arrangement. In 1988 the authorities handed control back to the subaks.

The five listed sites

The World Heritage property covers about 19,500 hectares in five parts.

Pura Ulun Danu Batur. The supreme water temple, at Kintamani.

Lake Batur. The crater lake below it.

The Pakerisan valley. The oldest known irrigation system on the island, north of Ubud, with the spring temple of Tirta Empul and the rock-cut shrines of Gunung Kawi.

Catur Angga Batukaru. By far the largest part, on the slopes of Mount Batukaru in Tabanan, including the terraces of Jatiluwih, which are mentioned in an inscription of the tenth century.

Pura Taman Ayun. The royal water temple at Mengwi, the largest and most architecturally distinguished of the regional temples, surrounded by a moat.

Under pressure

The landscape is shrinking. Bali loses about a thousand hectares of rice land a year to houses, villas and hotels. Tourism takes a large share of the island’s fresh water, and the water table has fallen. The farmers are ageing and the plots are too small to give a good living. Since 2010 the government has offered tax relief and other support to those who keep their land in rice.

For travellers

The widest terraces are at Jatiluwih, at about 700 metres in the hills of Tabanan, where marked paths cross more than 600 hectares of fields below Mount Batukaru. Taman Ayun is on the way and takes half an hour. A subak museum, opened in 1981, is in the town of Tabanan.

In the Pakerisan valley the same water serves the fields and the bathers at Tirta Empul. The terraces look their best when the rice is young and green or just before harvest, and the timing differs from one subak to the next, so there is always something growing.