Some years ago I heard in a history podcast associated with how stuff work about an empire in the far east (maybe India) that collapse due to poor water treatment. Sadly, I cannot recall much else. Do any of you know about such empire?
The concept of hydraulic despotism – states which hinge upon their ability to control water supplies – isn't a new one. Karl August Wittfogel, a Marxist historian, was the originator of the modern form of this concept in Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (1957), arguing that Eastern states were predisposed to despotism because of climate conditions. (Yes, Jared Diamond-ism is pretty old.) However, he was in fact predated by Nicolas Boulanger, an 18th-century French writer who had already postulated that the apparently 'despotic' states of the Far East were highly dependent on natural forces. Both, however, were extremely over-simplistic in their analyses, and that of China (my area of speciality) was no exception, being neither despotic nor entirely hydraulic in its processes of state change.^1
Now, obviously I cannot comment on India and its relationship to water, not being an India specialist. However, the podcast you describe seems to be referencing some variant of the hydraulic despotism thesis, and so I think a discussion of its application to China would not be entirely irrelevant in this regard. No dynastic change ever came about chiefly as a result of failure to control water supplies (and more importantly river floods), but these were considered endemic of failing regimes. If you look at the Taiping Rebellion, for example, one of the key advantages the Taiping had was access to experienced manpower from river pirates, driven inland as a result of the First Opium War, which simultaneously rendered the coast too dangerous for piracy thanks to the Royal Navy whilst also weakening the authority of the Qing in the southern mainland and its rivers.^2 Even the Nian Rebellion, which broke out after the 1851 Yellow River flood, was perpetrated by an organisation of secret societies that had been established some years before.^3
It's not inconceivable that water supplies and rivers would have played a part in state change in India, just as in China, but it's still important to remember, at least in the Chinese example, that it was a symptom, and not a cause, of the process of change.
Sources, Notes and References:
I have a hunch you may be thinking of the Khmer Empire and the Hydrological theory of its collapse. If this rings a bell, you should check out this previous AskHistorians answer:
What caused the decline of the Khmer Empire and the rise of Dai Viet and Thai in the 1200s? And could this change in balance of power be interpreted as a shift in cultural influence between Sino and Indo civilization on South East Asia? answered by /u/Beck2012 who gives a short run-down of the various factors involved and a source list. Factors 4-6 involve the water supply and management.