Traditional Water Narratives in Utah

Toelken, Barre

doi:10.2307/1500047

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Their towns emulated Joseph Smith's visionary Zion Plan, which featured broad streets flanked by ditches for homestead garden irrigation, and larger ditches for outlying fields (Jackson, 1994). Mormon communities had successful institutional combinations of hierarchical decisionmaking coupled with egalitarian sharing of surplus and scarcity that enabled them to weather various stresses and establish new colonies across Utah and the wider southwest (e.g., Toelken, 1991;Lavoie and Sleipness, 2018). Several studies have focused on Mormon collaboration and conflict with Native American communities, e.g., in the Uintah Valley of Utah (Endter, 1988) and Tuba City on the Navaho Indian reservation in Arizona (Smallcanyon, 2010).…”

Section: Th Century Water Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional levels of water management in the Colorado River basin region: A macro-historical geographic review

Wescoat

2023

Front. Water

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Complex water-stressed basins like the Colorado River in North America have multiple institutional levels of water management. Each institutional level is characterized by rules, organizations, and spatial jurisdictions that developed over decades to centuries to shape a dynamic multi-level system. After introducing the concept of institutional levels, and its relationship to geographic scales, this paper employs systematic bibliographic search methods to review their development in the Colorado River basin region. Results begin with the community level of water management from prehistoric Indian water cultures to early Hispanic water communities, 19th century water communities, and 20th century water organizations. Conflict among water communities shaped the state level of constitutional authority over water rights administration during the 19th century. Competition among states led in the 20th century to the interstate level of apportionment that often paralleled federal and tribal level water development policies, eventually leading to the international level of treaty relations between the U.S. and Mexico. This macro-historical geographic progression from institutions that were relatively small in size and early in time to those at higher levels and more recent in time offers insights into the multi-level institutional logic of the “law of the river” in the Colorado River basin region.

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Section: Th Century Water Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional levels of water management in the Colorado River basin region: A macro-historical geographic review

Wescoat

2023

Front. Water

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“…The history of Utah's water management is complex, with periods of communal management and complicated private-government initiatives (Smoak 2020; Toelken 1991). Early Latter-Day Saints (colloquially, Mormon) settlers viewed water as a communal resource: individual rights were secondary to community needs, with water rights controlled under the direct administration of the Mormon Church (Alexander 2022; Arrington and May 1975; Harvey 1989; Houston 2002; Thomas 1920).…”

Section: Integrating Open-source Water Management Data With Archaeolo...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The history of Utah's water management is complex, with periods of communal management and complicated private-government initiatives (Smoak 2020;Toelken 1991). Early Latter-Day Saints Gathering information on the eligibility status of historic water features helps determine if additional fieldwork or research is needed to document more water features in Cache County, as well as direct preservation practices such as creating a statewide historic context or a multiple property NRHP nomination.…”

Section: Historic Canals In Cache Countymentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges of Documenting Historic Water Systems

Cohen

Cannon

Jimenez

2023

Adv. archaeol. pract.

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Geospatial research in archaeology often relies on datasets previously collected by other archaeologists or third-party groups, such as state or federal government entities. This article discusses our work with geospatial datasets for identifying, documenting, and evaluating prehistoric and historic water features in the western United States. As part of a project on water heritage and long-term views on water management, our research has involved aggregating spatial data from an array of open access and semi-open access sources. Here, we consider the challenges of working with such datasets, including outdated or disorganized information, and fragmentary data. Based on our experiences, we recommend best practices: (1) locating relevant data and creating a data organization method for working with spatial data, (2) addressing data integrity, (3) integrating datasets in systematic ways across research cohorts, and (4) improving data accessibility.

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False Gospels of Efficiency

Vail¹

2022

Agricultural History

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This article examines the conflicts over knowledge, expertise, spiritual promises, and agroecological realities that collided in the construction of an early-1900s rural water conservation district in Cache Valley, Utah. Out of these tensions emerged a field-based view of conservation that oscillated between hydrologists' teachings of rational management through irrigation and local dry farming practices that seemed to acknowledge the valley's limitations—all in a futile effort to make the land faithful to an agri-spiritual aesthetic that persuaded scientists and farmers alike to rebuild District No. 1 over and over again. From debates about whose expertise to follow to economic devastation from illicit dealings of dubious financiers and unruly environmental conditions, the saga of Cache County Water Conservation District No. 1 reveals an irrigated rural western landscape that was as unpredictable as it was inescapable.

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Traditional Water Narratives in Utah

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Institutional levels of water management in the Colorado River basin region: A macro-historical geographic review

Institutional levels of water management in the Colorado River basin region: A macro-historical geographic review

Challenges of Documenting Historic Water Systems

False Gospels of Efficiency

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