Ecosystems and Ecohydrology

The 2012 Little Bear Fire burned 44,000 acres in the upper Rio Hondo Basin in south-central New Mexico. Landscape in the Basin ranges from mixed conifer forests at higher elevations (12,000 ft) to desert shrubland at lower (5,200 ft) elevations. Burned areas are at risk of substantial post-wildfire erosion and flash floods. USGS post-wildfire analysis estimated 70% of the burned area had a high...

The Anderson Ranch Wetlands (AR Wetlands), located in Taos County, north-central New Mexico, may be at risk from changes in climate patterns, from shifts in available water supply, and from agricultural groundwater pumping adjacent to the wetlands. To help guide management decisions, the USGS is completing an initial hydrologic characterization of the wetlands.

The Upper Rio Grande Basin (URGB) of Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and northern Mexico was chosen as a focus area study (FAS) for the USGS National Water Census. The conjunctive use of water in the URGB takes place under a myriad of legal constraints including the Rio Grande Compact agreement between the States, an international treaty with Mexico, and several federal water projects. Development of...

The Upper Rio Grande (URG) River Basin extends from the headwaters in Colorado to the USGS streamflow gage Rio Grande near Fort Quitman, Texas, and includes both native water and transmountain water from the Colorado River Basin. Because of surface-water allotment issues, input from various sources of water (native and transmountain), numerous reservoirs, and complex stream-aquifer relations...