From an earlier EarthDate, you may remember John Wesley Powell, who mapped the Grand Canyon and became one of America’s leading geologists.

After his trip, he studied the American West—then called the Great American Desert.

Powell realized its dryness—with rainfall below 20 inches a year—made it fundamentally different than the rest of the country.

He predicted that farming and settlement methods used in the East and Midwest would fail, and proposed to Congress a much different approach: Don’t divide the West into states with straight-line borders as elsewhere; instead, follow the water.

Organize it into commonwealths by watershed, so that all water in one area was under one jurisdiction.

His proposed map looked very different, with organically shaped borders following ridgelines and drainage plains, each unit containing its own rivers and streams as water sources.

Within those watersheds, he proposed a much larger farm size, and reserved drier areas for grazing or no development at all.

Powell’s goal was to avoid water battles in the West and better manage resources. But others had different ideas, and Congress was not persuaded.

Instead, the government embarked on 100 years of building canals, reservoirs, and irrigation systems.

These were successful in populating the West much more densely than Powell proposed.

But that population now struggles with water supply, drought, and falling water tables, just as he predicted.