scholarly journals Rio Grande transboundary integrated hydrologic model and water-availability analysis, New Mexico and Texas, United States, and northern Chihuahua, Mexico

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall T. Hanson ◽  
Andre B. Ritchie ◽  
Scott E. Boyce ◽  
Amy E. Galanter ◽  
Ian A. Ferguson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Water Availability ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Availability Analysis ◽  
Integrated Hydrologic Model

scholarly journals Challenges and Opportunities for Water of the Rio Grande

2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Edward Rister ◽  
Allen W. Sturdivant ◽  
Ronald D. Lacewell ◽  
Ari M. Michelsen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Water Rights ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
The United States ◽  
Irrigated Agriculture ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Agriculture Sector ◽  
Interstate Compacts

The Rio Grande has headwaters in Colorado, flows through New Mexico, and serves as the United States-Mexico border in Texas, emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. Snow melt in Colorado and northern New Mexico constitutes the water river supply for New Mexico and the El Paso region, whereas summer monsoonal flow from the Rio Conchos in Mexico and tributaries, including the Pecos River, provides the Rio Grande flow for southern Texas. The region is mostly semiarid with frequent long-term drought periods but is also characterized by a substantial irrigated agriculture sector and a rapidly growing population. International treaties and interstate compacts provide the rules for allocation of Rio Grande waters between the United States and Mexico and among Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. Water rights in Texas have been adjudicated, but the adjudication process was based on a wet period; hence, contemporary Rio Grande water rights are overallocated. Issues related to the waters of the Rio Grande include frequent drought, increased municipal demand caused by a rapidly increasing population, supply variability, underdeliveries from Mexico, increasing salinity, inefficient delivery systems, health issues of the population, no economic/financial incentives for farmers to conserve, and water is not typically priced for efficiency. Stakeholders are interested in identifying solutions to limited water supplies while there is increasing demand. There are several activities in place addressing Rio Grande-related water needs, including enhancing delivery distribution efficiency of raw water, conversion of rights from agriculture to urban, improving both agricultural irrigation field distribution and urban use efficiency, developments in desalination, and litigation. None of the solutions are easy or inexpensive, but there are encouraging cooperative attitudes between stakeholders.

scholarly journals Combining Uranium, Boron, and Strontium Isotope Ratios (234U/238U, δ11B, 87Sr/86Sr) to Trace and Quantify Salinity Contributions to Rio Grande River in Southwestern United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Garcia ◽  
Pascale Louvat ◽  
Jerome Gaillardet ◽  
Syprose Nyachoti ◽  
Lin Ma
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
River Flow ◽  
Shallow Groundwater ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
Isotope Ratios ◽  
Critical Zone ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
Isotopic Compositions ◽  
Rio Grande River

In semi-arid to arid regions, both anthropogenic sources (urban and agriculture) and deeper Critical Zone (groundwater with long flow paths and water residence times) may play an important role in controlling chemical exports to rivers. Here, we combined two anthropogenic isotope tracers: uranium isotope ratios (234U/238U) and boron isotope ratios (δ11B), with the 87Sr/86Sr ratios to identify and quantify multiple solute (salinity) sources in the Rio Grande river in southern New Mexico and western Texas. The Rio Grande river is a major source of freshwater for irrigation and municipal uses in southwestern United States. There has been a large disagreement about the dominant salinity sources to the Rio Grande and particularly significant sources are of anthropogenic (agriculture practices and shallow groundwater flows, groundwater pumping, and urban developments) and/or geological (natural groundwater upwelling) origins. Between 2014 and 2016, we collected monthly river samples at 15 locations along a 200-km stretch of the Rio Grande river from Elephant Butte Reservoir, New Mexico to El Paso, Texas, as well as water samples from agricultural canals and drains, urban effluents and drains, and groundwater wells. Our study shows that due to the presence of localized and multiple salinity inputs, total dissolved solids (TDS) and isotope ratios of U, B, and Sr in the Rio Grande river show high spatial and temporal variability. Several agricultural, urban, and geological sources of salinity in the Rio Grande watershed have characteristic and distinguishable U, Sr, and B isotope signatures. However, due to the common issue of overlapping signatures as identified by previous tracer studies (such as δ18O, δD, δ34S), no single isotope tracer of U, Sr, or B isotopes was powerful enough to distinguish multiple salinity sources. Here, combining the multiple U, Sr, and B isotope and elemental signatures, we applied a multi-tracer mass balance approach to quantify the relative contributions of water mass from the identified various salinity end members along the 200-km stretch of the Rio Grande during different river flow seasons. Our results show that during irrigation (high river flow) seasons, the Rio Grande had uniform chemical and isotopic compositions, similar to the Elephant Butte reservoir where water is stored and well-mixed, reflecting the dominant contribution from shallow Critical Zone in headwater regions in temperate southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. In non-irrigation (low flow) seasons when the river water is stored at Elephant Butte reservoir, the Rio Grande river at many downstream locations showed heterogeneous chemical and isotopic compositions, reflecting variable inputs from upwelling of groundwater (deeper CZ), displacement of shallow groundwater, agricultural return flows, and urban effluents. Our study highlights the needs of using multi-tracer approach to investigate multiple solutes and salinity sources in rivers with complex geology and human impacts.

The Diversion of Interstate Waters in the United States

1938 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 907-921
Author(s):  
James Simsarian
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
The Supreme Court

Two cases which are concerned with the diversion of the waters of interstate streams were before the United States Supreme Court in the October term of 1937. One of them, Texas v. New Mexico, will be withdrawn from the Court docket when the Rio Grande compact signed by representatives of Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas and a representative of the United States on March 18,1938, enters into effect. The other case, Nebraska v. Wyoming and Colorado, was first argued before the Supreme Court in 1935. In May, 1938, the Court granted the petition of the United States for permission to intervene. Further written briefs and oral arguments were to be considered by the Court when the fall term of 1938 opened.

scholarly journals A national topographic dataset for hydrological modeling over the contiguous United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3263-3279
Author(s):  
Jun Zhang ◽  
Laura E. Condon ◽  
Hoang Tran ◽  
Reed M. Maxwell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
Overland Flow ◽  
R Package ◽  
The United States ◽  
Network Routing ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Water Model ◽  
Stream Network ◽  
Integrated Hydrologic Model

Abstract. Topography is a fundamental input to hydrologic models critical for generating realistic streamflow networks as well as infiltration and groundwater flow. Although there exist several national topographic datasets for the United States, they may not be compatible with gridded models that require hydrologically consistent digital elevation models (DEMs). Here, we present a national topographic dataset developed to support gridded hydrologic simulations at 1 km and 250 m spatial resolution over the contiguous United States. The workflow is described step by step in two parts: (a) DEM processing using a Priority Flood algorithm to ensure hydrologically consistent drainage networks and (b) slope calculation and smoothing to improve drainage performance. The accuracy of the derived stream network is evaluated by comparing the derived drainage area to drainage areas reported by the national stream gage network. The slope smoothing steps are evaluated using the runoff simulations with an integrated hydrologic model. Our DEM product started from the National Water Model DEM to ensure our final datasets will be as consistent as possible with this existing national framework. Our analysis shows that the additional processing we provide improves the consistency of simulated drainage areas and the runoff simulations that simulate gridded overland flow (as opposed to a network routing scheme). The workflow uses an open-source R package, and all output datasets and processing scripts are available and fully documented. All of the output datasets and scripts for processing are published through CyVerse at 250 m and 1 km resolution. The DOI link for the dataset is https://doi.org/10.25739/e1ps-qy48 (Zhang and Condon, 2020).

scholarly journals A national topographic dataset for hydrological modeling over contiguous United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Zhang ◽  
Laura E. Condon ◽  
Hoang Tran ◽  
Reed M. Maxwell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
R Package ◽  
The United States ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Stream Network ◽  
Topographic Features ◽  
Digital Elevation ◽  
Physically Based ◽  
Integrated Hydrologic Model

Abstract. Topography is a fundamental input to hydrologic models critical for generating realistic streamflow networks as well as infiltration and groundwater flow. Although there exist several national topographic datasets for the United States, they may not be compatible with gridded models that require hydrologically consistent Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). Here, we present a national topographic dataset developed support physically based hydrologic simulations at 1 km and 250 m spatial resolution over contiguous United States. The workflow is described step-by-step in two parts (a) DEM processing using a Priority Flood algorithm to ensure hydrologically consistent drainage networks and (b) slope calculation and smoothing to improve drainage performance. The accuracy of derived stream network is evaluated by comparing the derived drainage area to drainage areas reported by the national stream gage network. The slope smoothing steps are evaluated using the runoff simulations with an integrated hydrologic model. The processed DEM is designed to capture the topographic features and improve the runoff simulations for the models solving partial differential equations. The workflow uses an open-source R package and all output datasets and processing scripts are available and fully documented here. All of the output datasets and scripts for processing are published through Cyverse at 250 m and 1 km resolution. The DOI link for the dataset is https://doi.org/10.25739/e1ps-qy48 (Zhang and Condon, 2020).

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