Identify a water-harvesting system found in Jaisalmer.

Correct — C. Khadins are the Jaisalmer system.

A khadin is a long earthen bund thrown across the lower slope of a rocky catchment. Monsoon runoff collects behind it and soaks the field through, and the crop is sown on that stored soil moisture once the standing water has gone.

NCERT's Class 10 geography chapter on water resources names khadins in Jaisalmer beside johads elsewhere in Rajasthan, which is where SSC takes the pairing from.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Guls — Guls are diversion channels of the Western Himalayas, cut to lead stream water to terraced fields. They belong to hill agriculture, not to the Thar desert.
• (b)
  Johads — Johads are earthen check dams that hold rainwater in a depression, worked most famously around Alwar. They are Rajasthani but not the Jaisalmer structure the question asks for.
• (d)
  Kuls — Kuls are the same Himalayan diversion channels as guls, used in Himachal Pradesh and the Jammu region. A mountain technique cannot be the answer to a desert question.

Traditional water harvesting comes up because each structure is tied to one region, and that tie is what gets tested.

The desert systems store or spread scarce runoff: khadins in Jaisalmer, johads as check dams elsewhere in Rajasthan, and tankas or kunds as underground tanks fed from sloping rooftops.

The hill systems move water instead of storing it — guls and kuls divert streams to fields in the Western Himalayas. Learn each name with its place and the question answers itself.

Key facts

• Khadins are runoff-farming embankments in Jaisalmer district, Rajasthan.
• Johads are earthen check dams associated with the Alwar region of Rajasthan.
• Guls and kuls are diversion channels of the Western Himalayas.
• Tankas and kunds are underground tanks that store rooftop rainwater in western Rajasthan.

Common traps

• Answering johads because both johads and khadins are Rajasthani
• Treating guls and kuls as two different systems when they are one Himalayan channel under two names

No directly related past PYQ was found.