Water

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter provides a brief overview of Classic Maya water-management systems, highlighting both the challenges of securing year-round access to water and the variety of solutions engineered by communities across the lowlands to address them. In many regions, communities learned from the shortcomings of their Preclassic forebears and diversified their water capture and storage strategies. The relatively stable climate of the Classic Period contributed to the steady growth of communities for over seven centuries, but the population expansion presented its own challenges. As communities like Tikal and Edzna expanded, they adapted their water-management systems by augmenting the scale of existing reservoir and canal networks and constructing new, smaller reservoirs away from the site center. A massive, centrally planned terrace network transformed the landscape of the Vaca Plateau around Caracol to slow runoff, capture water, and saturate the soil. Palenque’s engineers continued to carve new building surfaces out of the site’s waterlogged perch on the edge of the highlands by diverting streams and runoff channels into paved conduits. In the Puuc region, Classic residents supplemented existing communal surface reservoirs with individual household cisterns. Throughout the lowlands, communities modified their natural environments to their advantage. Even a relatively stable climatic period in the tropics can include significant swings in precipitation from year to year and from subregion to subregion. Classic communities prepared for these uncertainties by diversifying water-management strategies and continuing to adapt their practices.