Mayan-Urban+land+and+and+Water

Urbanization and watersheds //Necessary adaptation for urbanization in the seasonally dry Maya Lowlands was in the use of reservoirs as part of a long-term modification of local watersheds. During the heavy rainfall for 7 months of the year, the Maya took advantage of that rainfall by collecting enough water in urban areas to survive through the dry season. In the Pre-classic, such reservoir systems were typically located in natural topographic depressions. However, as Classic Maya civilization began to emerge, reservoir constructions became more sophisticated and were located in the upper reaches of local watersheds to the rugged karst ridges on which urban centres were being built. At La Milpa, the upper portions of local watersheds draining the site core were dammed in order to create reservoirs. One of the reason the Maya came up with such an of this elaborate water strategy appears to be to regulate soil moisture levels in flatter upland soils which appear to have been used as plots for intensive agriculture. The soils found in such pockets are highly fertile if soil moisture can be effectively regulated and they are highly suitable to intensive cultivation. Terracing the land began with check dams and other contouring modifications of natural drainage channels surrounding population clusters in the Early Classic and then exploded in a proliferation and complex variety of dry slope terracing in the Late Classic. //



//Listed below is a link showing one of the six watersheds in the Mayan Mountain system.// []