Perfect World
Acequias

Acequias · New Mexico · Fieldguide

Northern NM Water Protection Association

676 ditches the state has mapped in this region, 98 of them named · Taos County.

Northern NM Water Protection Association
Ditch (676)Adjudication area
What this page is, and is not
Every line and point here is a feature the Office of the State Engineer publishes, placed inside this region by its own geometry — nothing is drawn or assigned by hand. The state maps 676 ditches here and names 98 of them. That is a count of what one dataset records, not a count of how many acequias run in this valley — the OSE's named-acequia layer covers some regions richly and others barely at all. Where this page is thin, the valley is not.

Notices on this desk

Mora County: two acequias are fighting a state cut to their irrigation water

Las Acequias de Cañoncito y Encinal say the Office of the State Engineer ordered their headgate closed and set a valley-wide water allowance well below what their own hydrologist found the land needs.
Mora County
Read →

Water here today (9 gages)

Active USGS streamgages within this region's bounding box — near these acequias, though not necessarily on them.

Live from the USGS National Water Information System. Cubic feet per second — one cfs is about 449 gallons a minute. A tile that says no reading means the gage did not report, which is not the same as a dry ditch.

Drought in this county

Taos County, New Mexico
On the 2026-08-25 map, 100% of the county was in moderate drought or worse, 100% in severe or worse. U.S. Drought Monitor, retrieved 2026-08-31.

How much of Taos County, New Mexico has been in drought

Share of Taos County, New Mexico in severe drought or worse (D2–D4), weekly, 20002026. Source: U.S. Drought Monitor (National Drought Mitigation Center, USDA, NOAA). Categories are published cumulatively.

0%50%100%20022008201420202026

Adjudications reaching this region

The court process that decides, for every user on a stream system, how much water they have a right to and how old that right is. Status is the state's own, from its adjudication layer.

CompletedRed RiverOffice of the State Engineer · open the case page →
CompletedCostillaOffice of the State Engineer. No case page is linked from the state's layer.
CompletedCimarron/RayadoOffice of the State Engineer. No case page is linked from the state's layer.

Named acequias here (98)

The ditches the state's acequia layer names. Deduplicated — one acequia is often several conveyance segments in the source.

ACEQUIA DEL MALINO · ACEQUIA DEL MOLINO · ALMAGRE CANYON · ALVINO BARELA · ANDERSON · ASSOCIATION · Acequia Madre · Association Ditch · BEAR CANYON · BITTER CREEK · BLIND GULCH · BOBCAT CREEK · BONITO CANYON · BOOKER · CABRESTO CREEK · CABRESTO DITCH NO 1 · CABRESTO DITCH NO 2 · CABRESTO DITCH NO 3 · CABRESTO DITCH NO 4 · CABRESTO DITCH NO 5 · CABRESTO DITCHES · CABRESTO DITCHES 1,2,3 & 4 COMBINED · CAPULIN CANYON · Cerritos Number 2 · Cerro Canal · Cerro Community Ditch · Cerro Community Ditch - LATERAL NO 1 · Cerro Community Ditch - LATERAL NO 1 & 2 · Cerro Community Ditch - LATERAL NO 2 · Cerro Community Ditch - LATERAL NO 3 · Cerro Community Ditch - LATERAL NO 4 · Community Ditch · Cordillera Ditch · DRY ARROYO · EAGLE ROCK LAKE · EL Rito De La Lama · Embergo Ditch · FAWN LAKES · GARCIA DITCH NO 1 · GARCIA DITCH NO 2 · GOATHILL GULCH · GWINN · JAROSO CREEK · LA LOMA CANYAON · LARGO CANYON · LATERAL FROM CABRESTO DITCH NO 4 · LATERAL FROM LLANO · LATIR COMMUNITY · LEWIS · LIANO IRRIGATION COMPANY · LLANO · LONSDALE DITCH NO 1 · LONSDALE DITCH NO 2 · Llano Ditch · MALLETTE CREEK · MASCARENAS · MIDDLE · MIDDLE DITCH LATERAL · MOLY CROP TAILING PIPE LINE · MUCHMORE · MUTZ BRO DITCH NO 1 · MUTZ BRO DITCH NO 2 · Main Lateral · Mesa Ditch · NORTH DITCH A/K/A RIO COLORADO · New Mexico Branch Cerro Canal · Number Four Ditch · Number One Ditch · Number Three Ditch · Number Two Ditch · PIONEER CREEK · QUINTANA DITCH NO 1 · QUINTANA DITCH NO 1 & 1-A · QUINTANA DITCH NO 1A · QUINTANA DITCH NO 2 · QUINTANA DITCH NO 3 · QUINTANA DITCH NO 4 · QUINTANA DITCH NO 5 · QUINTANA DITCH NO 6 · QUINTANA DITCH NO 7 · RYAN DITCH 'A' · RYAN DITCH 'B' · RYAN DITCH 'C' · RYAN DITCH 'D' · RYAN DITCH 'E' · RYAN DITCH 'F' · RYAN DITCH 'I' · Red River · Rito De La Lama · Rito Primero · Rito del Medio · SOUTH SIDE · SPRING CANYON · SPRING GULCH DITCH 1" PLASTIC PIPE · SULPHUR GULCH · Sunshine Canal · UNDER GROUND PIPE · WEST LATIR CREEK

What this desk covers

An acequia is a community-governed irrigation ditch. In New Mexico it is also a political subdivision of the state, with elected commissioners and a mayordomo, and many of them are older than the state, the territory, and the counties drawn around them. Their business happens at the ditch, at the county, and at the Office of the State Engineer — almost never at a city council, which is why the rest of this site cannot carry it.

Office of the State Engineer (OSE)
The state agency that administers New Mexico's water rights, issues permits, and enforces compliance orders.
Adjudication
The court process that decides, for every user on a stream system, how much water they have a right to and how old that right is. Seniority decides who gets water in a dry year.
Consumptive Irrigation Requirement (CIR)
The state's estimate of how much water a crop actually consumes on an acre in a given place, in acre-feet per year. In an adjudication it becomes the ceiling on a water right — so the number itself is often what the fight is about.
Headgate
The gate where a ditch takes water from the river. Ordering one closed stops the whole ditch.

Where to get real help

Perfect World is not a law office and nothing on this desk is legal advice. These are the people who actually do this work.

Keep reading

Ditches, diversions, region boundaries and adjudications: New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, OSE GIS — OSE Conveyances, retrieved 2026-08-31. Geometry simplified for display; nothing moved, nothing invented. Not a survey product.