Western Water A to Z: The History, Nature, and Culture of a Vanishing Resource

by Robert R. Crifasi

Overview

Western Water A to Z is the first ever field guide to Western water. Reinventing this twentieth-century genre for a twenty-first-century audience, Robert R. Crifasi answers questions about rivers, water projects, the culture of water, the ecosystems water projects have created or destroyed, and the reliance of cities, farms, and industries on this critical resource.
 
Organized as a collection of terms, the book addresses the most salient water issues and provides helpful background information regarding their origins and implications. Photographs serve a vital role in the cultural dialogue on water and stand as an equal partner to the text. Each subject is covered in about one page and is accompanied by one or two striking images from famous photographers like Margaret Bourke-White, Carleton E. Watkins, Arthur Rothstein, William Henry Jackson, and Dorothea Lang as well as Crifasi’s own work. Water often finds itself at the center of our cultural discourse in art, cinema, and literature, which play essential roles in shaping our understanding and experience of Western water. Crifasi also engages personalities that are nearly synonymous with Western water—John Wesley Powell, Elwood Mead, and Floyd Dominy, among others—to show how their lives intertwined with and often influenced the course of water development across the region.
 
Travelers, adventurers, students, and anyone interested in water will find Western Water A to Z a handy and entertaining reference guide.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646423279
Publisher:	University Press of Colorado
Publication date:	01/20/2023
Pages:	392
Sales rank:	450,095
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Robert R. Crifasi works in water management and planning and is an environmental scientist with more than twenty-five years of experience. He has worked as an environmental planner with Denver Water; served as the water resources administrator for the City of Boulder’s Open Space and Mountain Parks Department, where he was on the board of directors of eleven ditch companies; and was the president of several Boulder Valley ditches. He is an award-winning photographer and the author of A Land Made from Water.
 

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Part 1 Why Western Water A to Z? 3

Introduction 5

About the Scope of This Book 6

The Organization of Western Water A to Z 6

About the Photography 8

What Is the American West? 11

History of the West and Its Environment: A Land of Scarcity? 14

Conquest 15

Prior Appropriation and the Institutions of Water Management 16

Water Development 20

Part 2 Western Water A to Z 23

Abbey, Edward

Acequia

Acre-foot

Aggregate Mining

Agriculture

ALERT

Alluvial Fan

Alluvium

Aqueduct

Aquifer

Architecture and Modernity

Arroyo

Artesian Well

Art of Empire

Aspinall, Wayne

Augmentation

Avalanche

Avanyu 25

Bank

Bar

Base Flow

Bathtub Ring

Beaver

Bell Mouth Spillway

Beneficial Use

Boating Hazards

Bottled Water

Bottomland

Brower, David

Bureau of Reclamation

Buy and Dry 51

California State Water Project

Canals

Canyon

Cascade

Cash Register Dam

Central Arizona Project

Central Valley Project

Channel

Chinatown

Cienega

Climate Change

Closed Basin Project

Cloud Seeding

Coffin v. Left Hand Ditch Company

Colorado River

Colorado River Aqueduct

Colorado River Delta

Columbia River

Columbia River Megaflood and Glacial Lake Missoula

Confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers

Conservation and Conservancy Districts

Consumptive Use

Cooperation

Coulee

Cubic Feet per Second 68

Debris Flows

Delta Smelt

Dendrochronology

Desalinization

Desert Pupfish

Dewatered Streams

The Ditch

Ditch Easement

Dominy, Floyd Elgin

Dowsing (Water Witching)

Drip Irrigation

Drought

Dust Storms 104

Echo Park Controversy

Effluent

Elephant Butte Dam

Elwha Dam

Endangered Species Act

Environmental Movement

Evapotranspiration 122

Fish Hatcheries

Fishing

Flash Flood

Floodplain

Floods

Flumes

Fluoridation

Fossil Water

Fracking 132

Gages and Water Measuring

Geyser

Gilbert, Grove Karl

Glacier

Glen Canyon, Glen Canyon Dam, and Lake Powell

Grand Canyon Dams

Grand Coulee Dam

Great American Desert

Great Basin

Greywater and Reclaimed Water

Groundwater 142

Hayden, Carl

Headgate

Headwaters

Hetch Hetchy

High Scalers

Hite Marina

Hohokam Canals

Hoover Dam and Lake Mead

Hundredth Meridian

Hybrid Freshwater Ecosystems

Hydraulic Mining

Hydrograph

Hydropower 157

Indigenous Water Rights

Infiltration and Artificial Recharge

Injection Well

Instream Flows

Interstate Water Compacts

Invasive Species

Irrigation 175

Lahontan Cutthroat Trout

Lake Bonneville

Lee's Ferry

Levee

London Bridge

Los Angeles River

Losing Stream 188

Mead, Elwood

The Milagro Beanfield War

Missouri River

Mulholland, William 196

National Environmental Policy Act

Nonpoint Source Pollution 203

Outlet Works

Over the River

Owens Valley

Oxbow 205

Parker Dam

Perennial Rivers and Streams

Playa

Pool-riffle

Powell, John Wesley 210

Rafting

Rain Follows the Plow

Rainwater Harvesting

Rapids

Reclamation

Recreation

Return Flows and Tailwater

Rincon

Rio Buenaventura

Rio Grande

River Access

A River Runs Through It

Rural Electrification

Russian Olive 218

Salinity

Salmon

Salmon River Sweep Boat

Salton Sea

Sanitary Sewers

Selenium

Siphon

Smythe, William Ellsworth

SNOTEL

Snowmaking

Southwestern Willow Flycatcher

Spillway

Spiral Jetty

Spring

Stock Pond

Stream Narrowing 248

Tamarisk

Terrace

Teton Dam Disaster

Thermal Springs

Tie Drives

Tinaja

Trans Mountain Diversions

Tunnels

Turf Grass 270

Union Colony

US Army Corps of Engineers 281

Virtual Water 284

Water Buffalo

Water Conservation

Water Features

Water Glyph, or Cup and Channel Petroglyphs

Water Grab

Water Purification: Water and Wastewater Treatment Plants

Watershed or Drainage Basin

Water War

Water Wheel

Well

Wetlands

Wet Water/Paper Water

Whooping Crane Windmill 286

Yellowstone Lake

Yield 305

Zybach, Frank, and Center Pivot Irrigation 308

Part 3 Thinking about Western Water in the Twenty-First Century 311

Notes 319

Bibliography 343

Index 361

Editorial Reviews

A unique view of water resources in the West . . . enlightening and engaging.”
—Tom Cech, One World One Water Center for Urban Water Education and Sustainability at Metropolitan State University

“Delightfully readable. . . diverse audiences from general readers to university students will find plenty to enjoy here.”
—CHOICE

From the Publisher