Forty-three puquios in the Nazca region were still in use in the early 21st century and relied upon to bring fresh water for irrigation and domestic use into desert settlements.

[1] The technology of the puquios is similar to that of the Qanats of Iran and other desert areas of Asia and Europe, including Spain.

A few puquios in northern Chile and in other parts of Peru were probably constructed at the initiative of the Spanish after the conquest of the Inca Empire in the 16th century.

[4] In 1918 geologist Juan Brüggen mentioned the existence of 23 socavones (shafts) in the Pica oasis, yet these have since been abandoned due to economic and social changes.

Most archaeologists believe that the Nazca puquios are of pre-Columbian origin, but some believe that they were built by the indigenous subjects of the Spanish colonists in the 16th century.

[9] In the early 21st century Rosa Lasaponara, Nicola Masini, and their team of the Italian CNR (National Research Council), in cooperation with archaeologist Giuseppe Orefici, studied the Nazca puquios using satellite imaging.

Scholars were able to see how the "puquios were distributed across the Nazca region, and where they ran in relation to nearby settlements – which are easier to date."

[15] The technology of the puquios is similar to that of the qanats of Iran and Makhmur, Iraq, and other ancient filtration galleries known in numerous societies in the Old World and China, which appear to have been developed independently.

From south to north, the rivers with puquios are Las Trancas, Taruga, and the Nazca, which has two tributaries, the Tierras Blancas and the Aja.

Many more puquios were likely built in pre-historic times in several other river valleys of the Rio Grande de Nazca system.

The first is the trench puquios which is a deep, narrow ditch, usually less than one meter in width and lined with rocks, which is open to the air.

From the aquifer, the water flows through an underground tunnel downslope, emerging at the surface into a trench puquios for distribution to irrigation canals and for drinking and domestic purposes.

Spaced along the route of the gallery puquios are vertical shafts, "eyes" or "ojos" in Spanish, which extend from the surface to the subterranean tunnel.

[23] [24] Fifty-seven small rivers along the 1,500 kilometres (930 miles) long desert coastline of Peru empty into the Pacific Ocean.

In 1853, the English traveler Clements Markham described the Nazca valley as "the most fertile and beautiful spot on the coast of Peru."