Water system infrastructure and the monuments that commemorate it in California and Mexico are evidence of similarities in their cultures’ water regimes. Mexico’s Lerma Waterworks site argues the importance of reliable water provision for Mexico City’s modern identity. The mid-20th c. architecture and the murals designed by Diego Rivera, entitled “ Agua, Origen de la Vida ,” narrate the journey of water as it flows continuously from the indigenous past and into the modern present. Along the way, Rivera represents water as bridging distinct locations, cultures, and social classes. This mythic rendering, however, does not account for today’s disparity in water access in the city today.

Lauren Bon is a transformative figure. Through her work with the Metabolic Studio and as a trustee of the Annenberg Foundation, she examines a handful of enormous and intersecting questions about Los Angeles, the American West, the way we think about landscapes, our water and where it comes from, what we owe the land and communities, and our moral, economic, and political relationships. In this interview she discusses her work, including recent and forthcoming projects such as Not A Cornfield, 100 Mules Walking the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and Bending the River Back into the City —the waterwheel she plans to build for a spur of the Los Angeles River that will sit adjacent to her studio on the edge of Los Angeles’s Chinatown.

This is a roundup of events marking the centenary of the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Also included are books, songs, and movies about the aqueduct.

Chacha Sikes, a “millennial” technologist and “nerd for nature,” explains the need for a new, digital, interactive California water atlas, which is now being built by hackers and makers modeled on the original California Water Atlas published in the 1970s.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power public relations officer Chris Plakos describes how the Los Angeles Aqueduct works, from its headwaters near Big Springs to the Los Angeles Aqueduct filtration plant in Sylmar.

Should Los Angeles continue to exist? In this anxious love letter, father and son Angelenos and environmentalists Bob and Rob Sipchen decide their city's fate. The Sipchens examine Los Angeles' history of water appropriation, race relations, riots, suburban sprawl, and urban gentrification. Despite its recent history, the story of Los Angeles that the Sipchens ultimately tell is not one of enmity, gridlock, and irresponsible development. Instead, they see in Los Angeles decreasing division and slackening car-dependence among its citizens who, collectively, endeavor to make the city a cleaner and sustainable exemplar for other mega-cities around the world. Consequently, the Sipchens are pleased to answer affirmatively.

A photographic essay by photographer Chad Ress of the Center for Social Cohesion explores the social uses and value of water on each end of the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

This timeline details the economic, social, and environmental impact that the Los Angeles Aqueduct had on the Owens Valley. It begins in the 19th century with the Paiute who lived in the valley, and covers local opposition to the aqueduct and attempts to sabotage it in the 1920s, controversial land sales, depletion of the valley water table, dust at the dry Owens Lake bed, the impact of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power on the region, the second aqueduct and Mono Lake, the 1991 long-term water agreement, and mitigation efforts including dust control at Owens Lake and the Lower Owens River Project. The material is drawn from Stringfellow's There It Is—Take It! project.

An interview with Ron Nichols, director of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power surveys the past, present, and future of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the department's relationship with Owens Valley, restoration of Owens Lake, the role of the department and its unions in city politics, climate change and the challenges ahead.

This essay explores the ways we talk about water and fire in California, how that discussion is shaped by larger ecological and economic concerns, and how those concerns in turn shape exurban development in the state.