Water For The Anasazi

How the Ancients of Mesa Verde Engineered Public Works Navajos called them "the ancient ones," the Anasazi. Monuments to their genius remain in Colorado's cliffside apartment houses, terraced fields, and ruins of a sprawling, medieval road system. But there are mysteries about the Anasazias well. Among them is how they were able to get enough water to sustain a civilization on a riverless mesa with infrequent rainfall. This full color essay by Kenneth R. Wright, a civil engineer, probes the technology behind the Anasazi's success.

A large part of the global population lives in arid lands which have low rainfall and often lack the water required for sustainable population and economic growth. This book presents a comprehensive description of the hydrogeology and hydrologic processes at work in arid lands. It describes the techniques that can be used to assess and manage the water resources of these areas with an emphasis on groundwater resources, including recent advances in hydrologic evaluation and the differences between how aquifer systems behave in arid lands versus more humid areas. Water management techniques are described and summarized to show how a more comprehensive approach to water management is required in these areas, including the need to be aware of cultural sensitivities and conditions unique to many arid regions. The integration of existing resources with the addition of new water sources, such as desalination of brackish water and seawater, along with reusing treated wastewater, will be required to meet future water supply needs. Also, changing climatic conditions will force water management systems to be more robust so that future water supply demands can be met as droughts become more intense and rainfall events become more intense. A range of water management techniques are described and discussed in order to illustrate the methods for integrating these measures within the context of arid lands conditions.

The author, William M. Eaton, brings to his studies of Pueblo Indian culture a unique background. He was commissioned as 2nd Lt. in the USAAF with specialized training as a celestial navigator...One day as he surveyed a petroglyph panel, he was impressed with the fact that the Pueblo Indian shaman had imprinted several star Panels, namely Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, into the petroglyph panel. One set of obscure dots soon led to another, and a remarkable source of astronomical data was developed including the utilization of Pleiades, Orion, and the star Capella. This data, some of which related to star panels announcing the summer and winter solstices, was intended to initiate the annual schedules of a number of Pueblo Indian events such as the Niman Dance in Summer Solstice, the Soyal Winter Solsice Ceremony, and the Momtcit Warrior Initiation Rites in late December.

New Mexico is a single volume presentation of the fascinating succession of events and characters that make up our state's past. This revision of the 1988 edition takes the reader to the opening years of the twenty-first century. What they said about the earlier edition: "New Mexico covers a lot of ground. . . . It's chock-full of little known facts and fascinating anecdotes that give fresh perspective to the past."--New Mexico Magazine "We can recommend that every library place this book on the reading shelf and if possible place a copy on the reference shelf."--Rota-Gene