An acequia or séquia is a community-operated watercourse used in Spain and former Spanish colonies in the Americas for irrigation. Particularly in Spain, the Andes, northern Mexico, and the modern-day American Southwest, acequias are usually historically engineered canals that carry snow runoff or river water to distant fields. It can also refer to the long central pool in a Moorish garden, such as the Generalife in the Alhambra in Southern Iberia.