Follow these stories through the Water History tag.Dr. The Water Environment Federation (WEF Alexandria, Va.) will share stories that explore the history of the world’s drinking water and wastewater treatment systems. Mary Bufe, WEF Highlights Follow Water History Articles in WEF Highlights The canal is part of the 212 km (132 mi) of canals operated by the Salt River Project (Tempe), the primary water provider for much of central Arizona. It follows some of the prehistoric routes first plotted by the Hohokam. Today, the Arizona Canal stretches nearly 63 km (39 mi) from Scottsdale, through Phoenix, to Peoria. About 400 years after the Hohokam people vanished, a new generation of settlers used the abandoned canals to irrigate their crops, some of which they sold to Gold Rush prospectors in the area of Phoenix.
While researchers do not agree on what led to the Hohokam’s demise, they know what happened next. And attempts to feed the growing population ultimately failed. Other studies have found that a dramatic population increase that occurred after construction of the irrigation network may have stressed water resources. Researchers have suggested that floods, drought, disease, or salt buildup on the fields could have caused the decline. A hundred years later, the society virtually had disappeared. “Recent archaeological evidence indicates the canals were repaired roughly every 15 years, and a single canal’s lifespan was about 45 years.” A culture vanishesĪfter thriving for more than 1000 years, the Hohokam population began to plunge around 1350 C.E. “The tapered design is most likely the product of their experience with these issues and cause and effect over generations,” Vernon said.
They also built the canals to achieve a downhill grade of 0.3–0.5 m (1–2 ft) each 1.6 km (1 mi), avoiding hills and valleys that may have affected flow. After seeing how water that moves too quickly can pick up canal-clogging sand and silt, the Hohokam chose a tapered design to stabilize flow. In designing their irrigation system, the Hohokam developed innovative engineering concepts still in use today. “It is possible that may have observed the river overflowing during monsoon seasons and got the idea that they could move water by creating irrigation ditches.”Īrchaeologist Emil Haury stands in a canal that was once part of an ancient water system that irrigated up to 44,516 ha (110,000 ac) and served as many as 50,000 Hohokam people, the largest population in the prehistoric Southwest. The earliest Hohokam communities were found along the Salt River. “As prehistoric peoples shifted to a more sedentary, agricultural way of life, the population would have expanded, requiring more water to produce more crops,” Vernon said. The Hohokam may have been driven to irrigate the desert environment both by necessity and in response to environmental changes, said Danielle Vernon, education assistant at the museum. This system supported the largest population in the prehistoric Southwest, the Arizona Museum of Natural History website says. Historians estimate the ancient water system may have irrigated up to 44,516 ha (110,000 ac) by 1300 C.E. These deep trenches branched off into a smaller network of canals. In one case, Arizona Museum of Natural History researchers discovered a prehistoric canal that measured 4.6 m (15 ft) deep and 13.7 m (45 ft) wide. Using stone hoes, the Hohokam hand-dug hundreds of miles of irrigation ditches. Around 600 C.E., the young agricultural civilization did something that no North American culture before them had done to sustain their crops: they constructed a large and sophisticated irrigation system. Part of that long, rich history can be attributed to a breakthrough water technology: canals.īeginning around 300 C.E., the Hohokam people settled the arid desert environment of the Gila and Salt River Valley, an area that encompasses present-day Phoenix, according to Arizona Museum of Natural History (Mesa) research. The Hohokam Native American society flourished for almost 1500 years in what is today central Arizona. The ruins of the ancient Hohokam irrigation system can be found at the Park of the Canals in Mesa, Ariz.
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