“the Decline of the Khmer Empire Was Largely Due to Its Faulted Water System.” to What Extent Do You Agree with the Statement Above?

“The decline of the Khmer Empire was largely due to its faulted water system.” To what extent do you agree with the statement above?

The decline of the Khmer Empire was due largely to its faulted water system. However, many other factors were the causes of the decline of this Civilization. For example, the influx of another culture, a land depleted of natural resources, Natural disasters and attacks from many other Civilizations all lead together to the decline of the Khmer Civilization.

First, the faulted water system. The Khmers were long thought of to have an excellent water management system. However, scientists have found out that the burst of strong rainfall would have been too much for the drains in this Civilization; too much rainfall in a short period of time would have resulted in major flooding. Though the people in this Civilization built their houses on stilts to protect them from this, the stilts would have rotted and the houses, tumbled to the ground. Soon, all here would be for ‘ground’ would be a pile of rotten wood. On this, the Khmer people built new houses. The cycle repeated itself again and again, and soon, the houses might have tumbled down due to an extremely weak foundation. To accommodate for the growing population, many trees were cut down from nearby hills. That created rain runoff; this carried sediment to the canal network, blocking it and thus contributing majorly to the fall of the Khmer empire. Due to frequent flooding, laterization could also have taken place, making the soil totally infertile. This would have resulted in a shortage of food in the Empire itself, weakening the army and the people, leading to major defeats at war with other Civilizations.

The Khmer Civilization was surrounded by formidable empires like Ayutthaya to the West, Champa to the East and China to the North. These Civilizations all attacked the Khmer Civilization, weakening it and draining it of its natural resources. Indeed, Ayutthaya’s attack came...