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Middle Rio Grande Water Budget Presentation
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The challenges of meeting the water needs of the Middle Rio Grande (MRG) basin become greater each year due to the combined effects of increasing demands of water coupled with a decreased supply due to the effects of a multi-year drought and expected decrease in water supply as a result of a warming climate.
Although there is improved understanding of the water resources in the basin, there is still large uncertainty in how water is used, especially in those components of the hydrologic cycle that are difficult or impossible to measure. These include evaporation from the river and reservoirs, evapotranspiration (ET) from crops and riparian vegetation, and ground water recharge from the river, agricultural fields, and canals.
One method of understanding water resources within the basin is to develop a budget that shows water sources and sinks as well as how water moves through the basin from surface water to ground water and back. The Water Budget Task Force of the Middle Rio Grande Water Assembly prepared a water budget for the MRG watershed for three different time periods; 1975 to 1997, 2000 to 2012 and 2008 to 2012. These budgets were compiled using URGSiM which is a hydrologic model of the Rio Grande Basin
developed by researchers at Sandia National Laboratories. Though it was developed to model future conditions, for this study it was simply used as an accounting tool to quantify water sources, sinks and flows during the budget periods.
The Middle Rio Grande Water Budget will be presented and discussed showing how water is used. The purpose of the presentation is to develop a better understanding of the complexity of water management and discuss future challenges and opportunities.
FISCAL IMPACT:
None.