Water Management in Ancient Mayan Cities

Ancestral cultures offer both positive and negative lessons to contemporary societies that are being challenged by growing urban populations and dwindling natural resources. Water is the most critical resource that is essential to human life, therefore understanding the effects of different water management approaches employed by past civilizations is important. Through mostly centralized water management approaches, ancient Mesomerican Maya city-states managed to withstand not only the dry seasons, but also prolonged periods of drought for millennia. Some ancient Maya cities show a high degree of technological achievement in water infrastructure systems, where water was channelized, conveyed, filtered, stored, and distributed to the people or used for agriculture. The Maya cities show sophisticated urban infrastructure systems for water management that we can draw from. However, the Maya also changed land cover and deforested the surrounding landscape, affecting the hydrologic cycle, and consequently, diminished water supplies. This pressure on ecosystems along with prolonged drought and social and political factors caused severe water shortages, starvation, and eventually, migration out of the cities. The Mayan water management experience highlights the need to conserve natural landscapes and ecosystem function to protect the hydrological cycle and the sustainability of our cities.