A Water Map for the Desert — Featured on Maps.com
I’m honored that my map of Black Mesa (Dził Yíjiin) was recently featured on Maps.com, Esri’s curated collection of meaningful, beautiful, and impactful maps from around the world.
This project was created in partnership with the Diné-led nonprofit Tó Nizhóní Ání ("Sacred Water Speaks"), which works to protect Black Mesa’s water sources from industrial use and depletion. Their advocacy helped stop Peabody Coal from extracting groundwater from the Navajo Aquifer—a vast and fragile system that serves as the only potable water source for many Navajo and Hopi communities in northeastern Arizona.
The map blends satellite imagery, terrain hillshades, and carefully crafted hydrologic symbology to bring this arid, high desert landscape to life. Real-world textures and elevation shading give depth to the plateau, while water features—rivers, ephemeral streams, springs, windmills, and wells—are shown with stylized clarity. Even the broken lines for intermittent streams are intentional, a visual cue to the seasonal nature of surface water in this region.
But the most important layer in this map is the one you can’t see directly: the lived knowledge of residents, elders, and local experts who remember windmills and springs no longer captured in official records. One of the project’s core revelations was just how fragmented and incomplete the documentation of water sources truly is—especially in places only accessible by rough dirt roads or oral history.
This map functions as more than a visual reference. It’s a tool for Black Mesa residents to navigate remote terrain, reconnect with overlooked water sources, and advocate for their rightful access to water. And for me, it’s a reminder of the power cartography holds—to inform, to support community-driven efforts, and to tell stories that matter.
Thank you to Tó Nizhóní Ání for trusting me with this work, and to Maps.com for helping share it with a broader audience.
🔗 Read the article: A Water Map for the Desert – Maps.com
🔗Learn more: tonizhoniani.org
