acequia

File:Potrero Ditch at Santuario de Chimayo.jpg, New Mexico]]

An acequia ({{IPA|es|aˈθekja|lang}}) or {{Lang|ca|séquia|italic=no}} ({{IPA|ca|ˈsekiə, -a|lang}}, also known as síquia {{IPA|ca|ˈsikiə, -a|}}, all from {{langx|xaa|(ال)ساقية|(al-)sāqiya}}) is a community-operated watercourse used in Spain and former Spanish colonies in the Americas for irrigation. Acequias are found in parts of Spain, the Andes, northern Mexico, and what is now the Southwestern United States (northern New Mexico and southern Colorado). In the United States, the oldest known irrigation canals are in Arizona and date back to 1200 BCE. Irrigation was extensively used by the Pueblo peoples in New Mexico in the Pre-Columbian era.

Spanish colonizers arrived in New Mexico in 1598 and brought irrigation methods from Iberia based on the Arab Agricultural Revolution.

Scholars describe acequias as "technological systems that are designed, maintained, and operated to meet a variety of productive goals, social services, and health needs, with the practice of irrigated agriculture being of paramount importance."{{sfnp|Rosenberg|Guldan|Fernald|Rivera|2020}} The traditional form of governance over acequias survives in New Mexico and southern Colorado and is the oldest form of European resource management still alive in the United States today.{{sfn|Romero|2021}}{{cite web |title=History: The Politics of Water |url=https://online.nmartmuseum.org/nmhistory/people-places-and-politics/water/history-water.html |website=New Mexico Museum of Art |publisher=Cultural Atlas of New Mexico |access-date=30 March 2025}}

Acequias are filled by snow melt and rain to water orchards, gardens, and other agricultural fields. Other than watering crops, acequias have deep cultural significance for many Indigenous and Native communities in New Mexico and Colorado.

Etymology

File:Main acequia, Elche Oasis, Spain (52131318257).jpg, Valencia, Spain (May 2012)]]

The Spanish word {{lang|es|acequia}} (and the Catalan word {{lang|ca|séquia}}) originate from Arabic word al-sāqiyah ({{lang|ar|الساقیة}}){{sfn|Romero|2021}} which has more than one meaning: "the water conduit" or "one that bears water" as well as 'bartender' (from {{wikt-lang|ar|سَقَى}} {{lang|ar-Latn|saqā}}, "to give water, drink"), and also refers to a type of water wheel.{{Cn|date=May 2024}}

History

Traditionally, the Spanish acequias have been associated with the Muslim colonization of the Iberian Peninsula; however the most likely hypothesis is that they improved on irrigation systems that already existed since Roman times, or even before.{{sfnp|Gómez|1974}} These ways of agricultural planning and colonization strategies come from the vast amount of cultural influences contributing to Spanish technology and governance. Likely the most meaningful stemmed from the Muslims that ruled parts of Spain for as long as eight centuries. Their ways of life influenced the Spanish and changed the way agriculture was done in Spain.{{sfn|Romero|2021}}

Acequias were later adopted by the Spanish and Portuguese (levadas on Madeira Island) and were utilized throughout their own colonies. Similar structures already existed in places such as Mendoza and San Juan, Argentina where acequias today run along both sides of the city streets. However, these acequias were originally dug by the Indigenous Huarpes long before the arrival of the Spanish. The introduction of acequias by the Muslims allowed for more agricultural diversity, with crops such as sugar cane and citrus fruits introduced.{{harvp|Burgen|2022}} The system of the acequia has changed over time to avoid incidents of the resource from being overused or under-maintained.{{harvp|Wise|Crooks|2012}}

File:Acequia Madre (Santa Fe) June 2022.jpg, Santa Fe, New Mexico, June 2022]]

Usage in the American Southwest

The earliest known irrigation canals in the United States date back to 1200 BCE.{{cite web |last1=Pringle |first1=Heather |title=Early Irrigators -- Tucson, Arizona |url=https://archive.archaeology.org/1001/topten/arizona.html |website=Archaeology Archive |date=2010 |access-date=1 April 2025}} The Hohokam of Arizona built large irrigation canals beginning about 800 CE.

Haury, Emil W Snaketown: 1964–1965, Kiva Vol. 31, No. 1. Maney Publishing on behalf of the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society, Oct. 1965, p. 8. By the year 1400 CE, the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico were using canals and ditches to irrigate their crops. With their arrival in New Mexico in 1598, the Spanish colonizers introduced their system of water management. Subsequently, Spanish acequias were also built and used in California, Arizona, and Texas. Acequias continue to provide a primary source of water for farming and ranching in the region of south central Colorado known as the Upper Rio Grande watershed or Rio Arriba{{sfnp|Rivera|1998|p={{pn|date=March 2023}}}} and some 700 in northern New Mexico continue to function.{{sfnp|Romero|2021b}}{{sfnp|Garcia|2022}}{{Cite news |last=Gilbert |first=Samuel |date=2024-04-22 |title=Nine practices from Native American culture that could help the environment |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/04/22/native-american-practices-combat-climate-change/ |access-date=2024-04-24 |newspaper=Washington Post |language=en}} This type of governance over acequias is to date the oldest depiction of European resource management still active in the United States today.{{sfn|Romero|2021}}

Design

Acequias are gravity chutes, similar in concept to flumes. Some acequias are conveyed through pipes or aqueducts, of modern fabrication or decades or centuries old (see transvasement). For the system to function properly the channel must have a good gradient to maintain the flow of water.

When rainfall and snowmelt start to flow it is carried into the Acequia Madre and through the connecting channels throughout parts of New Mexico. Acequias have several components that control the transport of water:

compuertas (headgates)- these gates open and close to allow water to flow through the channel
canoas (canoes)- log flumes that transport water across intersecting creeks and streams
sangrías (vessels)- lateral ditches cut perpendicular from the main canal to irrigate individual parcels of land
desagüe (draining channel)- carries surplus water back to the stream source{{sfnp|Rivera|1998|p={{pn|date=October 2023}} }}

Researchers affiliated with the Rio Grande Bioregions Project at Colorado College initiated a pioneering collaborative, farmer-led, and interdisciplinary study of Colorado and New Mexico acequias in 1995–99. Among the most significant findings of this study was that the acequia farms provide vital ecosystem and economic base services to the regions in which they are located. One study, as reported in {{harvp|Peña|Boyce|Shelley|2003}}, found that acequia agroecosystems promote soil conservation and soil formation, provide terrestrial wildlife habitat and movement corridors. They also protect water quality and fish habitat, promote the conservation of domesticated biodiversity of land race heirloom crops, and encourage the maintenance of a strong land and water ethic and sense of place, among other ecological and economic base values. This pioneering research on acequia ecosystem services, led by environmental anthropologist Devon G. Peña, has more recently been confirmed in other studies, e.g. {{harvp|Fernald|Baker|Guldan|2007}}, {{harvp|Fernald|Cevik|Ochoa|Tidwell|2010}}, {{harvp|Fernald|Guldan|Boykin|Cibils|2015}}, {{harvp|Raheem|Archambault|Arellano|Gonzales|2015}}.{{harvp|Peña|Boyce|Shelley|2003}}

Governance in New Mexico

File:La Canova Acequia New Mexico.jpg

Known among water users simply as "the Acequia", various legal entities embody the community associations, or acequia associations, that govern members' water usage, depending on local precedents and traditions. An acequia organization often must include commissioners and a majordomo who administers usage of water from a ditch, regulating which holders of water rights can release water to their fields on which days. In New Mexico, by state statute, acequias as registered bodies must have three commissioners and a mayordomo. Irrigation and conservation districts typically have their own version of mayordomos, usually referred to as "ditch riders" by members of the districts.{{sfnp|Rivera|1998|pp=59-60}}

Acequias in New Mexico and Colorado have successfully developed and implemented changes in state water laws to accommodate the unique norms, customs, and practices of the acequia systems. But the communal owners of the acequias in New Mexico are receiving hard economic pushes from land developers and current inflation that are pushing them to consider selling the valued acequia. The customary law of the acequia is older than and at variance with the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation, and the statutes promulgating acequia water law represent a rare instance of water pluralism in the context of Western water law in the United States (see {{harvp|Hicks|Peña|2003}}). For example, the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation is based on the principle of "first in use, first in right", while acequia norms incorporate not just priority but principles of equity and fairness. This is evident in the fact that Prior Appropriation considers water to be a commodity owned by private individuals while acequia systems treat water as a community resource that irrigators have a shared right to use, manage, and protect. The concept of a shared responsibility natural resources reflects the beliefs stemming from the Spanish and Indigenous people who brought the acequia to the U.S. The plethora of cultural behaviors and values that created acequia communities still exist in the United States.{{sfn|Romero|2021}}

While prior doctrines allow for water to be sold away from the basin of origin, the acequia system prohibits the transference of water from the watershed in which it is situated and thus considers water as an "asset-in-place". The Prior regime is based on a governance regime in which the members of a mutual ditch company will vote based on their proportional ownership of shares so that larger farmers have more votes. In contrast, the acequia system follows a "one farmer, one vote" system that has led researchers to consider this a form of "water democracy".{{sfnp|Rivera|1998|p={{pn|date=March 2023}}}}

Acequia law also requires that all persons with irrigation rights participate in the annual maintenance of the community ditch including the annual spring time ditch cleanup known as the limpieza y saca de acequia.{{sfnp|Office of the State Engineer Interstate Stream Commission |n.d.}}

Water disputes and acequias

An example of the disputes over allocation of scarce water is the continuing controversy over acequias diverting water from Embudo Creek to the Mora River in New Mexico. Settlers along the Mora River on the eastern side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains constructed gravity-fed irrigation ditches (acequias) to divert water from three headwaters sources of the Rio Pueblo to the Mora River. (The Rio Pueblo is an upstream tributary of Embudo Creek and not the same as the Rio Pueblo de Taos) The first diversion of water from Alamitos Creek was built about 1820; the second diversion from the Rito de la Presa was built in 1864; and the third and largest diversion was from the Rito Angostura. This diversion via acequias took 20 families three years to construct from 1879 to 1882. The acequia was {{cvt|8|mi|km}} long and "constructed without the benefit of sophisticated tools and engineering know-how, accomplishing the seemingly impossible task" of bringing water from one side of the mountains to the other. In drought years as much as one-half of the water of the Rio Pueblo is diverted to the Mora River. In 2021, that water irrigated about {{cvt|1900|acre|ha}} of agricultural land owned by 143 users.{{cite journal |last1=Ebright |first1=Malcolm |title=Making Water Run Uphill: The Mora Acequias de la Sierra vs Picuris Pueblo |journal=New Mexico Historical Review |date=2017 |volume=92 |issue=2 |page=117-118, 147 |url=https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmhr/vol92/iss2/3 |access-date=20 December 2024}}{{cite web |last1=Benanav |first1=Michael |title=Against the Flow |url=https://searchlightnm.org/picuris-pueblo-in-new-mexico-fights-centuries-old-water-battle/ |website=Searchlight New Mexico |access-date=12 January 2025}}

The transfer of water was controversial. The Picuris Pueblo contested the diversion of water from their territory to the Mora River as early as the 1860s and pursued a lawsuit against the diversions of water in the 1880s. The suit was dismissed as no attorney would take the case. Disputes about water continued into the 21st century. In 2021, unidentified persons blocked the acequia directing water from Alamitos Creek with a mound of rocks and interrupted the flow of water to Mora Country. The blockage was quickly removed, but the dispute over water rights continued.{{sfn|Ebright|2017|pages=142-144}}

Gallery

File:La Canova Acequia North.jpg|Concrete-lined portion of La Canova acequia, near Velarde, New Mexico

File:Los Chicos Acequia.jpg|Unlined portion of Los Chicos acequia, near Velarde, New Mexico

File:Near the intersection of the Los Padillas Drain and Putnam Drain in South Valley New Mexico. The Manzano Mountains are visible in the distance.jpg|Near the intersection of the Los Padillas Drain and Putnam Drain in South Valley, New Mexico

File:Compuerta and historic acequia (c5cab24d-3c05-4f91-81f2-b1a8a17445cd).JPG|A section of a compuerta (holding area) and historic acequia in Tumacacori National Historical Park, Santa Cruz County, Arizona The trail beyond the compuerta is the original route of the acequia.

File:Acequia Madre de Valero historical marker.jpg|Acequia Madre de Valero historical marker

References

=Citations=

=Works cited=

{{Cite web |last=Burgen |first=Stephen |date=April 11, 2022 |title=Spring time: why an ancient water system is being brought back to life in Spain; A project to restore a 1,000-year-old network of water channels is helping farmers in the Sierra Nevada adapt to the effects of the climate crisis. |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/11/ancient-water-system-restore-spain-sierra-nevada-aoe |access-date=2023-02-15 |website=The Guardian}}
{{cite journal |last1=Fernald |first1=A. G. |first2=T. T. |last2=Baker |first3=S. J. |last3=Guldan |display-authors=2 |title=Hydrological, Riparian, and Agroecosystem Functions of Traditional Acequia Irrigation Systems |journal=Journal of Sustainable Agriculture |volume=30 |number=2 |pages=147–71 |year=2007|doi=10.1300/J064v30n02_13 |bibcode=2007JSusA..30b.147F |s2cid=84955013 }}
{{cite journal |last1=Fernald |first1=A. G. |first2=S. Y. |last2=Cevik |first3=C. G. |last3=Ochoa |first4=V. C |last4=Tidwell |first5=J. P. |last5=King |first6=S. J. |last6=Guldan |display-authors=2 |title=River hydrograph retransmission functions of irrigated valley surface water–groundwater interactions |journal= Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering|volume=136 |pages=823–835 |year=2010|issue=12 |doi=10.1061/(ASCE)IR.1943-4774.0000265 |bibcode=2010JIDE..136..823F }}
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{{cite news |last1=Garcia |first1=Paula |title=Acequias Brace for a Future of Water Scarcity |publisher=Green Fire Times |date=February 2022}}{{incomplete citation|date=March 2023}}
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{{cite journal |last1=Hicks |first1=Gregory A. |first2=Devon G. |last2=Peña |title=Community Acequias in Colorado's Rio Culebra Watershed: A Customary Commons in the Domain of Prior Appropriation |journal=University of Colorado Law Review |volume=74 |pages=387–486 |year=2003}}
{{cite web |author=Office of the State Engineer Interstate Stream Commission |date=n.d. |title=Acequia Information |url=https://www.ose.state.nm.us/NMAC/Acequia-del-Cano/acequia.html |website=ose.state.nm.us |publisher=State of New Mexico |access-date=23 June 2022}}
{{cite book |last1=Peña |first1=Devon G. |last2=Boyce |first2=James K. |last3=Shelley |first3=Barry G. |chapter=The Watershed Commonwealth of the Upper Rio Grande |title=Natural Assets: Democratizing Environmental Ownership |date=2003 |publisher=Island Press |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=1-55963-539-8 |pages=169–85}}
{{cite journal |last1=Raheem |first1=N. |first2=S. |last2=Archambault |first3=E. |last3=Arellano |first4=M. |last4=Gonzales |first5=D. |last5=Kopp |first6=J. |last6=Rivera |first7=S. |last7=Guldan |first8=K. |last8=Boykin |first9=C. |last9=Oldham |first10=A. |last10=Valdez |first11=S. |last11=Colt |first12=E. |last12=Lamadrid |first13=J. |last13=Wang |first14=J. |last14=Price |first15=J. |last15=Goldstein |first16=P. |last16=Arnold |first17=S. |last17=Martin |first18=E. |last18=Dingwell |title=A framework for assessing ecosystem services in acequia irrigation communities of the Upper Río Grande watershed |journal=WIREs Water |doi=10.1002/wat2.1091 |year=2015|volume=2 |issue=5 |pages=559–575 |bibcode=2015WIRWa...2..559R |s2cid=129710529 }}
{{cite book |last1=Rivera |first1=Jose A. |title=Acequia Culture: Water, Land, and Community in the Southwest. |date=1998 |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |location=Albuquerque |isbn=0-8263-1858-4}}
{{Cite journal |last=Romero |first=Eric |date=2021 |title=Southwestern Acequia Systems and Communities; Nurturing a Culture of Place |url=https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nrj/vol61/iss2/3/ |journal=Natural Resource Journal |volume=61 |issue=2 |pages=169–172}}
{{cite news |last1=Romero |first1=Simon |date=July 13, 2021b |title=Drought Hits the Southwest, and New Mexico's Canals Run Dry |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/13/us/acequias-drought-new-mexico-southwest.html |access-date=2021-07-14 }}
{{cite web |editor1-first=Adrienne |editor1-last=Rosenberg |editor2-first=Steven |editor2-last=Guldan |editor3-first=Alexander G. |editor3-last=Fernald |editor4-first=José |editor4-last=Rivera |date=November 2020 |title=Acequias of the Southwestern United States: Elements of Resilience in a Coupled Natural and Human System |publisher=College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, New Mexico State University |url=https://pubs.nmsu.edu/acequias/index.html }}
{{Cite journal |last1=Wise |first1=Sarah |last2=Crooks |first2=Andrew T. |date=November 1, 2012 |title=Agent-based modeling for community resource management: Acequia-based agriculture |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0198971512000804 |journal=Computers, Environment and Urban Systems |series=Special Issue: Advances in Geocomputation |language=en |volume=36 |issue=6 |pages=562–572 |doi=10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2012.08.004 |bibcode=2012CEUS...36..562W |issn=0198-9715|url-access=subscription }}

External links

[http://www.acequiainstitute.org The Acequia Institute]
[http://www.lasacequias.org The New Mexico Acequia Association]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20110809212008/http://www.ose.state.nm.us/AcequiaCommission/ The New Mexico Acequia Commission]
[http://www.coloradoacequias.org/ Sangre de Cristo Acequia Association]
[http://taosacequias.org Taos Valley Acequia Association]

Category:Irrigation

Category:Irrigation canals

Category:Spanish words and phrases

Spain