Acequia: Water Sharing, Sanctity, and Place / Edition 1

by Sylvia Rodríguez

Overview

Every society must have a system for capturing, storing, and distributing water, a system encompassing both technology and a rationale for the division of this finite resource. Today, people around the world face severe and growing water scarcity, and everywhere this vital resource is ceasing to be a right and becoming a commodity. The acequia or irrigation ditch associations of Taos, Río Arriba, Mora, and other northern New Mexico counties offer an alternative. Few northern New Mexicans farm for a living anymore, but many still gather to clean the ditches each spring and irrigate fields and gardens with the water that runs through them. Increasingly, ditch associations also go to court to defend their water rights against the competing claims brought by population growth, urbanization, and industrial or resort development. Their insistence on the traditional "sharing of waters" offers a solution to the current worldwide water crisis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781930618558
Publisher:	School for Advanced Research Press
Publication date:	12/19/2006
Series:	A School for Advanced Research Resident Scholar Book
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.60(d)

Editorial Reviews

"Rodriguez's book provides a rare glimpse into the land-and-water culture upon which [New Mexico] was built, and whose future we may find worth preserving. For that reason alone, Acequia is worth reading."

From the Publisher