Acequias · New Mexico · Fieldguide

Rios Vallecitos, Tusas, Ojo Calient AA

2 ditches the state has mapped in this region, 1 of them named · Rio Arriba, Taos Counties.

Ditch (2)Point of diversion (9)

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 2 ditches here and names 1 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 (1 gage)

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

River

3.89 cfs

Rio Ojo Caliente At La Madera, Nm

Read Sep 1, 10:00 AM MT

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 these counties

Rio Arriba County, New Mexico

On the 2026-08-25 map, 100% of the county was in moderate drought or worse, 100% in severe or worse, and 31% in D4, exceptional drought. U.S. Drought Monitor, retrieved 2026-08-31.

How much of Rio Arriba County, New Mexico has been in drought

Share of Rio Arriba County, New Mexico in severe drought or worse (D2–D4), weekly, 2000–2026. Source: U.S. Drought Monitor (National Drought Mitigation Center, USDA, NOAA). Categories are published cumulatively.

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, 2000–2026. Source: U.S. Drought Monitor (National Drought Mitigation Center, USDA, NOAA). Categories are published cumulatively.

Points of diversion (9)

Where a ditch takes water from the river. Each links to its own record in the state's water-rights reporting system.

Named acequias here (1)

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

Gavilan Ditch

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.

New Mexico Acequia AssociationStatewide association of acequias — organizing, training, policy.OSE / ISC — AcequiasThe agency's own acequia program and its rules.Utton Transboundary Resources CenterUNM School of Law — New Mexico water law research and manuals.Acequia Assistance ProjectColorado Law — pro bono legal services to acequia communities.

Keep reading

The New Mexico acequia deskThe statewide map, a century of river record, and the reading room.New Mexico hubEvery city hub in the state.

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.