Power relations of the waterscape

Research regarding cultural landscape has shifted from landscape form toward the myriad processes that create it. This movement parallels transitions occurring within the discipline of geomorphology. This study applies a conceptual landscape model integrating social power relationships and the biophysical environment to the formation of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project (CBT), a transmountain water project located in northern Colorado. From the inception of the CBT concept in the 1930s to its authorization in 1937, the project was driven by a small group of authoritative people and institutions which created iron triangles concentrating social power. Perpetuating these alterations was Colorado's sugar beet industry brought about by decades of legislative encouragement from the federal level. This study reveals that a small group of collectivized individuals is able to make large impacts upon the physical and cultural landscape by means of authoritative positions within society.