Water Resources Professional Project Reports

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

Summer 2024

Abstract

Water users depend on institutional flexibility to efficiently allocate water in legally constrained and overallocated basins. Adaptive market-based mechanisms such as water banking proffer flexibility and fairness, but often face practical challenges fueled by empirical and institutional uncertainties. The Santa Fe Water Bank is a case in point. The City of Santa Fe transfers agricultural water rights from the Middle Rio Grande to its municipal Water Bank for sustainable development. Combined uncertainties in this process can obscure latent changes in water balance and foster misunderstanding, potentially provoking transfer protests. This study develops a formal model clarifying the interrelated institutional and hydrological processes in Santa Fe Water Bank transfers. The model then incorporates OpenET remote sensing to examine how established transfer conditions, which are contingent on an administrative constant representing consumptive use, influence regional water balance. Results demonstrate that current practices leave the potential for considerable changes in water availability, and that potential errors in administrative consumptive use can augment or diminish these changes. The overarching purpose is to show that lingering uncertainties hamper the institutional flexibility and intended outcomes of water transfer mechanisms. The study underscores the importance of considering formal models and new empirical tools in adaptive management strategies and provides a framework for addressing consumptive use uncertainty in Santa Fe Water Bank transfers.

Keywords

Santa Fe Water Bank, water rights, Middle Rio Grande, water bank transfers, water resources

Share

COinS