This proposal requests a one-year extension for the on-going Minority Post-Doctoral Fellowship project entitled "A Modeling Traditional Water Control Technologies: Floodwater and Seepage Fields" (0109216). The goal of the project is to develop methods to determine potential locations and climatic limits on productivity of prehistoric agricultural fields in the American Southwest. Additional benefits include information that can aid development of water-efficient arid-land agricultural technology. Goals are accomplished through study of the traditional agricultural technology and hydrology of Hopi farmers in four study sites in northern Arizona. Previously documented information on Hopi agriculture is supplemented by interviews and participation in hand-cultivation activities. Geomorphic and pedological analyses of traditionally farmed sites are integrated with climate and soil moisture monitoring to determine vadose-zone hydrologic processes vital to agricultural production. Thus far, research has revealed a new understanding of the interactions between traditional Hopi agricultural technology and hydrologic processes in agricultural fields. However, due to a long permitting process, a long search for completely hand-cultivated fields, the extreme drought of 2002, and addition of two monitored study sites beyond the proposed two sites, data collection and analysis will benefit from a one-year extension. This proposal describes project accomplishments and the benefits of an additional year of study. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0109216 and the Hopi Water Resources Program, and conducted through the kindness of Hopi farmers, including DS, EN, RL, and WK.
