A Global Important Agricultural System

Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) represent not only stunning natural landscapes but also agricultural practices that create livelihoods in rural areas while combining biodiversity, resilient ecosystems and tradition and innovation in a unique way. Since 2005, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has designated 74 systems in 24 countries as GIAHSs.  

Recognizing the VTCS’s remarkable heritage of agro-biodiversity and wild biodiversity, as well as its global significance as a practical solution to absorb shocks of natural disasters such as floods (which can be controlled by storing water) and drought (by reducing the water loss from tanks due to existence of the surrounding ecosystem), in 2017 the Village Tank Cascade System was designated as a GIAHS