Water Resources Professional Project Reports

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

Summer 2023

Abstract

Water resources management is becoming increasingly complex in the Middle Rio Grande Valley, where the negative impacts of climate change and growing demand for a fully allocated river put further strain on diminishing water supply. The precarity of future water availability emphasizes the importance of fully accounting for existing water rights allocations and understanding how ever changing social and ecological processes might hinder those rights from being fully realized. This study aimed at improving knowledge of the groundwater budget at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico by utilizing experimental methods of Darcy Flow analysis to estimate groundwater flow through the southern boundary of the Refuge. A climate change vulnerability assessment of the water supply was also conducted for this area to determine ways in which this vital water resource might be affected in the future. Results of the groundwater budget analysis indicate a groundwater return range of 51.99 – 56.14 acre-feet/year at the southern boundary of Refuge management units. However, data were insufficient to fully quantify total groundwater return due to gaps in knowledge of groundwater/surface water interactions between Refuge management units and the Rio Grande Low Flow Conveyance Channel. Additionally, this study only addressed groundwater flow through the management units of the Refuge, where the majority of water management activity occurs. Vulnerability assessment results showed that the impacts of climate change to the water supply in the basin are expected to be overwhelmingly negative in the coming years, emphasizing a need for stakeholders to approach adaptation strategies in dynamic and creative ways on a broader geographic scale.

Keywords

water resource management, Middle Rio Grande Valley, water supply, water rights, Bosque del Apache, groundwater

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