Acequias, hydrology, riparian habitat
So I've signed up for the Acequia Hydrology symposium and field tour on October 21 & 22 to learn a bit more about the relationships between surface irrigation and natural stream channels, much of it gleaned from experimental research done at the NMSU Alcalde Field Station where the Rio Grande leaves its steep canyon and emerges into the relatively flatter area around Embudo and Alcalde. I have read much of the work by Guldan, Fernald, Ortiz, and many others working out of NMSU - it's refreshing to see this work see the light of day. It shows that "water resources" experts and civil engineers have a lot to contribute, and a lot to learn, towards the impacts and after-effects of surface irrigation technologies that aren't directed by 30" pipe. Listening to local knowledge makes sense for a lot of reasons, in this case.
What will be of interest is how the socio-economic picture of acequias, and their current challenges given the difficult of small-scale farming in this country, merges or meshes with what we "now know" about their potential hydrological benefits. This post makes some honest, yet ambivalent, sense of what professional water resources folks think of acequias. Greenies often pigeon-hole acequias as potentially (or outright) harmful, as diversions away from 'natural' stream-courses that hurts fish populations and related biota. Parciantes understand the nefarious effects of a too-dense riparian under and over-growth and what that means for delivering water downstream to people who need it on their ditch, or to the stream below.
Photo: The oasis of Chupadero (NM) village, created by the town's acequia; without the acequia (upstream), these downstream patches of riparian would not exist or could only exist with groundwater pumping. Imagine the Pajarito Plateau area without these green pockets and it would be pretty grim, no?
What will be of interest is how the socio-economic picture of acequias, and their current challenges given the difficult of small-scale farming in this country, merges or meshes with what we "now know" about their potential hydrological benefits. This post makes some honest, yet ambivalent, sense of what professional water resources folks think of acequias. Greenies often pigeon-hole acequias as potentially (or outright) harmful, as diversions away from 'natural' stream-courses that hurts fish populations and related biota. Parciantes understand the nefarious effects of a too-dense riparian under and over-growth and what that means for delivering water downstream to people who need it on their ditch, or to the stream below.
Photo: The oasis of Chupadero (NM) village, created by the town's acequia; without the acequia (upstream), these downstream patches of riparian would not exist or could only exist with groundwater pumping. Imagine the Pajarito Plateau area without these green pockets and it would be pretty grim, no?
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