The pangu method, practiced in the Anuradhapura District of Sri Lanka, can be seen as a case of "serendipitous" autonomous adaptation. Based on the traditional system of sharing the work for cleaning and maintaining the irrigation infrastructure, it involves digging and/or desilting the community reservoir, raising or strengthening the bund, clearing the bund of bushes and weeds, cleaning out the canal sand, and carrying out small repairs of the canals in case those are damaged.  According to this method, every paddy land owner (of land in the command area of a particular tank) is responsible for cleaning and repairing one section of the bund or canals, allocated to him or her. Participants are paid for their work, either in money or in food, according to the number of sections they have been completed. The chairman of the Farmers’ Organization or the vel vidane administers the system, keeping an attendance list and making the payments.  Technical officers of the local government agency involved (might be the Department of Agrarian Services or the Divisional Secretariat) pay a regular visit for supervision of the works. The pangu method creates a sense of ownership and responsibility by involving farmers in both the planning and the implementation stages (as opposed to using contractors).  It discourages people from trying to get "a free ride" since each person is clearly accountable for a specific share of the work.

Link to Source