Publications

In 2020, the U.S. Geological Survey began targeted monitoring, in partnership with Bernalillo County, at three locations within the McEwen storm drainage pond to evaluate and compare the water quality of stormwater as it enters and exits the study area, which is channelized and routes urban stormwater runoff through a wetland area. Stage in McEwen pond and precipitation at a nearby...

Increasing water demand and multi-year drought conditions within the Mesilla/Conejos-Médanos Basin near the New Mexico-Texas- Chihuahua border have resulted in diminished surface-water supplies and increased groundwater withdrawals. To better understand recharge to the shallow aquifer, the spatial and temporal groundwater storage changes, and the variability of specific yield (Sy) in the...

New Mexico has a dynamic landscape, which will become even more so in response to climate change over the next 50 years, in part because of increasing incidence of wildfire. As the climate changes to warmer conditions, less rainfall will infiltrate into aquifers, leading to increased overland runoff. Landform processes can be complex, but in general, the predicted changes in climate and

Soils play a strong role in determining how New Mexico’s diverse landscapes will respond to climate change. Soil cover acts like a sponge, holding in water that falls as rain or snow. The presence of soil supports vegetation, and substantially reduces runoff and erosion. Soil enhances other processes such as infiltration of water and aquifer recharge. Soils can be damaged by a warming...

Construction and operation of dams provide sources of clean drinking water, support large-scale irrigation, generate hydroelectricity, control floods, and improve river navigation. Yet these benefits are not without cost. Dams affect the natural flow regime, downstream sediment fluxes, and riverine and riparian ecosystems. The Jemez Canyon Dam in New Mexico was constructed in 1953 by the...

The presence of contaminants in a source water can constrain its suitability for drinking. The quality of groundwater used for public supply was assessed in 25 principal aquifers (PAs) that account for 84% of groundwater pumped for public supply in the U.S. (89.6 million people on a proportional basis). Each PA was sampled across its lateral extent using an equal-area grid, typically...

Often referred to as “mudflows,” debris flows are a type of landslide made up of a rapidly moving mixture of dirt, rocks, trees, and water (and sometimes ash) that start on a hillside and travel downvalley. They can easily overflow channels and severely damage houses, vehicles, or other structures. Areas burned by wildfires are especially susceptible to these hazards, which can be...

Discovery of hidden geothermal resources is challenging. It requires the mining of large datasets with diverse data attributes representing subsurface hydrogeological and geothermal conditions. The commonly used play fairway analysis approach typically incorporates subject-matter expertise to analyze regional data to estimate geothermal characteristics and favorability. We demonstrate an...

Evaluating whether hydrological models are right for the right reasons demands reproducible model benchmarking and diagnostics that evaluate not just statistical predictive model performance but also internal processes. Such model benchmarking and diagnostic efforts will benefit from standardized methods and ready-to-use toolkits. Using the Jupyter platform, this work presents HydroBench...

The Albuquerque Basin, located in central New Mexico, is about 100 miles long and 25–40 miles wide. The basin is hydrologically defined as the extent of consolidated and unconsolidated deposits of Tertiary and Quaternary age that encompasses the structural Rio Grande Rift between San Acacia to the south and Cochiti Lake to the north. A 20-percent population increase in the basin from...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) operates an extensive nationwide network of stream, rain, and groundwater gages. These instruments are used to monitor how much water there is across the Nation at any given moment. Stream data are collected at streamgages every 15 minutes, transmitted to USGS servers, and updated online in real time. To improve awareness of current water conditions and...

The Upper Rio Grande Basin (URGB) is a critical international water resource under pressure from a myriad of climatic, ecological, infrastructural, water-use, and legal constraints. The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the spatial distribution and temporal trends of selected water-budget components (snow processes, evapotranspiration (ET), streamflow...