Yuma Irrigation Case Study

Gage McLeod
Coursework
Ploude 2

Yuma Irrigation

Question 1: Describe in detail how irrigation changed yuma/ southern Arizona. Yuma Arizona has been changed greatly by irrigation. The colorado river has been the main source of irrigation in Yuma and without it the irrigation and agriculture would be completely different. Before yuma was dammed off and tamed, the Colorado river was a huge river that was way bigger than it is now in the present day. Due to the great water sources and resources that yuma naturally has to offer it is perfect land to farm on. “However floods prevented any consistent farming of the land.” Something had to be done about the river constantly flooding and keeping the land from being farmed. “The inexperience of farmers caused some problems early on. Some of the less knowledgeable farmers used excessive water. This led to seepage bringing alkali to the surface. Rodents, especially rats and gophers endangered project canals
There were more positive than negative outcomes in the Yuma Project. The Yuma siphon was a very positive overall effect because what it did was bring water to the yuma area to irrigate the farms, fields, and crops. Without this way of water or water source The whole yuma irrigation process would be messed up. The yuma siphon is still being put to use to this day. “The siphon goes from California to Arizona right under the colorado river.” The Hoover dam was had one of the best and biggest effects on the whole entire Yuma project. What it did was controlled the flow of the water in the colorado river so that anything downstream there would be no crazy flooding which was exactly what the Yuma valley really needed because one of the reasons that this great farmland was not irrigable was because of the constant flooding which would destroy the land that it would touch. “Colorado River usually ran high in the late spring and early