Join Los Alamos County Libraries in person and via Zoom to discuss the New Mexico acequia culture and history. Courtesy LAC

Los Alamos County Libraries will host a special sneak-peak  program on Thursday, Feb. 16, from 7 to 8 p.m. live on Zoom. Enrique Lamadrid and Jose  Rivera, editors of the soon-to-be-published book, Water for the People: The Acequia Heritage of  New Mexico in a Global Context, discuss this compilation of 25 essays by world-renowned  acequia scholars. 

Topics will include acequia culture, use, and history in New Mexico and worldwide, situating  our own state’s acequia heritage and its inherent sustainable design within a global framework.  Acequias dating from as far back as the late 16th century continue to irrigate their communities  today despite threats of prolonged drought, urbanization, private water markets, extreme water  scarcity, and climate change. Water for the People celebrates acequia practices and traditions and  shows how these ancient irrigation systems continue to provide arid regions with a model for  water governance, sustainable food systems, and community traditions that reaffirm a deep  cultural and spiritual relationship with the land year after year. 

Enrique R. Lamadrid is a distinguished professor emeritus of Spanish at the University of New  Mexico. He is the editor of the Querencias Series at the University of New Mexico Press. José A. Rivera is professor emeritus of community and regional planning at the University of  New Mexico. He is the author of Acequia Culture: Water, Land, and Community in the  Southwest (UNM Press). 

This program is free to the public and will be livestreamed on Zoom. To register, please visit the  event calendar at LosAlamosLibrary.org or call (505) 662-8257. Made possible by the generous support of Friends of Los Alamos County Libraries.