Emily  Hayes-Rich
Fulbright Research Award  |  2021-22

Morocco

Emily Hayes-Rich is an M.S. student in Public Archaeology at UNM and received a Fulbright Research Award to Morocco. Her research focus is on the khettara traditional irrigation system. She hopes to be able to demonstrate the importance of traditional knowledge as a way of mitigating the effects of climate change in rural arid and semi-arid communities around the world. This proposed project will use a combination of historical and anthropological techniques coupled with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis to help provide a holistic understanding of both urban and rural khettara systems in Morocco. Her project will take place in the Tafilalt oasis town of Rissani and the city of Marrakech, both of which thrived under the use of the khettara. In Morocco she will be working with Dr. Jamila Bargach at the non-profit organization Dar Si Hmad and Dr. John Shoup at the Al Akhawayn University of Ifrane. Her faculty mentors include Dr. Frances Hayashida of University of New Mexico and Dr. Dale Lightfoot of the University of Oklahoma.

“It was in 2017 that I first encountered the khettara irrigation system when I was on a study abroad in Morocco with my undergraduate institution, Lewis & Clark College. The systems immediately sparked in me a burning curiosity as they so closely resembled the acequia irrigation system I had grown up with in Pojoaque, New Mexico. This intense need to understand the connection between the two systems has sent me on a journey that I could never have anticipated. It is an honor to be selected to return to Morocco with the 2021/2022 Fulbright Research Award to continue my quest to understand these irrigation systems and all of the questions and answers that they hold.”