Water on the Llano Estacado: Perspectives on the Ogallala Aquifer and the Southern High Plains (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781682833339)

Water on the Llano Estacado offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary investigation into the precarious relationship between human civilization and the vital water resources of the Southern High Plains. Centered on the Llano Estacado--a vast, semiarid plateau spanning parts of Texas and New Mexico--this volume addresses the looming crisis of the Ogallala Aquifer's depletion.

By bridging the gap between the sciences, legal scholarship, and the environmental humanities, editors John Beusterien and Britta Anderson assemble a diverse cohort that explore the region's water. Authors include educators, scientists, land managers, writers, artists, and generational residents, as well as a former director of city planning for Lubbock and the director of the Center for Water Law and Policy at Texas Tech University School of Law. Their contributions value local embodied and lived knowledge.

The collection moves from the deep time of geological formations to the urgent legal and technical challenges of the twenty-first century. Contributors examine provocative theoretical frameworks such as Water Gaia, which posits the Earth as a living aquifer, alongside rigorous histories of the Ogallala Formation and the ecological drying of significant sites like Blackwater Draw. The chapters interrogate the complexities of Texas water law and policy and the potential for technological innovation, such as the identification of new water sources through desalination processes. Readers will be taken into a history of water in the region with regard to geology, ancient animals, and peoples. Equally important and resonant are the included perspectives from visual art, literature, music, photography, and poetry.

In its entirety, Water on the Llano Estacado presents the region's water not only as a commodity but as an entity inextricably and mutually bound to humanity. The collection underscores that collaborative and creative thinking are necessary for inventive solutions for using, caring for, defining, and envisioning water for overcoming the challenge of future crises.

Scholarly and accessible, this work provides a necessary road map for understanding groundwater in one of North America's most hydrologically sensitive regions, making it an essential resource for researchers in environmental history, geography, and natural resource policy, as well as those invested in the management of a sustainable water future for the landscape of the Southern High Plains.