As the Colorado River dries, tribes see indigenous water management as essential
Native people have lived in the Southwestern U.S. for millennia and have traditional ways to manage water that have worked for them. When settlers arrived, they upended that system. Now, tribes in the Colorado River Basin are trying to elevate indigneous approaches to water management. University of Arizona doctoral candidate Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan is finishing a dissertation on the history of land and water in the San Xavier District, part of the Tohono O’odham Nation, just south of Tucson. Some of her research has taken her to the Santa Cruz River. On a quiet stretch tall trees, made archways and provided shade from the sun.