Questions of development and ecological degradation have often been traced to a dyad consisting of population growth and technological choices. The capital/nature relationship, however, is a complex one, influenced by several social and environmental factors, including modes of social relations and various forms of property. This paper attempts to illustrate this argument by analysing a specific historical situation - an inquiry into experiments with flood control in the delta regions of eastern India over 150 years. This region was transformed over this period from a flood dependent agrarian regime to a flood vulnerable landscape - a transformation effected by British colonial rule that not only instituted a new regime of property but also oversaw the deployment of numerous technical interventions. This colonial attempt to synchronise the hydraulic environment with its administrative needs and to subordinate the region to capitalist relations offers an example in which to map the basic dynamics between capital and nature and thereby enable us to address the question raised at the outset - how capital transforms nature.
