ARCHITECTURAL HYDROLOGY IN THE CALIFORNIA MISSIONS: FROM CONTACT TO CONTEMPORARY ISSUES

Easily overlooked among the historically valued and aesthetically pleasing restored ruins of the California Missions are fragments of the water systems that served them – aqueducts, dams, reservoirs, cisterns, filtration buildings, fountains, and lavanderias. When images of mission features are filtered in graphics programs, they may be more practical for inclusion in, and affordable publication of, field trip guidebooks and handouts. More profoundly, artistic manipulation of the images conveys the emotional tenor of ethical and environmental concerns about the missions. Just as public interpretation and education in the state is beginning to address the devastating impact of the missions on native people, increased attention to the water features can facilitate reflection on the precedents that mission water established in California, and the alteration of physical environments they initiated. Diversion, retention, and irrigation for crops and livestock displaced native species and altered biomes. Particularly devastating was the impact of cattle ranching, whose destructive impact extended from grassland alteration to reduced diversity of continental shelf invertebrate faunas.