Is the Rio Grande Headed for “Permanent Drought”?

Print More

Laura Paskus/NMID

The Rio Grande, pictured here as it flows through Albuquerque. provides water to farms, cities, and businesses in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico.

The Rio Grande, pictured here as it flows through Albuquerque. provides water to farms, cities, and businesses in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico.

Laura Paskus/NMID

The Rio Grande, pictured here as it flows through Albuquerque, provides water to farms, cities, and businesses in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico.

 

In the mad rush to get a jump on holiday vacation, readers probably missed the release of an important paper on water and climate change in the West. But don’t worry. Grab a cookie or some fruitcake, and I’ll lay out the water wonkery for you.

In the paper, “Western water and climate change,” authors studied four major river basins—the Colorado River, the Rio Grande, the Klamath River and California’s Bay-Delta system—and looked at how each will be affected by climate change.

Of the four, they found that the Rio Grande Basin (which includes the river itself and its tributaries) faces the greatest challenges.

In fact, they cite the Rio Grande as the best example of how continued declines in water flow due to climate change might sink a major river system into “permanent drought.”

That’s in part because all of the river’s waters are already appropriated—or, in use by someone. That means there’s little wriggle-room in the system to deal with shrinking supplies or new demands. And as the climate warms and less surface water is available, those waters—“currently being disputed and wrangled”—will be less and less available in the coming decades.

Authored by Michael Dettinger (US Geological Survey, Scripps Institution of Oceanography), Bradley Udall (Colorado State University’s Colorado Water Institute) and Aris Georgakakos (Georgia Institute of Technology’s Georgia Water Resources Institute), the paper appeared in Ecological Applications, a peer-reviewed journal from the Ecological Society of America.

Among the key points they make about the West in general:

-Most of the region has warmed by about 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to the historical norms from 1901-1960

-The frost-free season has lengthened by 15 to 20 percent, a trend that’s expected to continue, with a 60 to 70 percent increase in many mountain areas

-While precipitation is more difficult to predict than temperatures, annual average precipitation totals will increase in northern states and decrease in the south, especially in the Southwest. Those changes are projected to be small—but “both wet and dry extremes are projected to increase substantially and almost everywhere.”

-“Very heavy” precipitation events will increase

-Dry spells will lengthen in most regions

-Snowpack and snow-fed systems will continue changing

(By the way, issues related to snowpack and runoff should be increasingly familiar to NMID readers. We wrote last year about how difficult it is to make accurate streamflow forecasts and about how decreasing snowfall and rainfall will put many water supplies, including those in New Mexico, at risk.)

The authors explain that changes in snowfall and its runoff into streams and rivers will affect people—even in places where the annual volume of flows might not change.

That’s because of how we use and allocate water.

In New Mexico, water rights are mind-bogglingly complicated. But the simplified version goes something like this: Water in streams and rivers belongs to the public and it’s held in trust by the state. The state grants water rights (which are basically private property rights) to farmers, cities or businesses who prove they can put the water to “beneficial use.” The system was set up in the early 20th century, even before statehood.

Many farmers hold older, more senior water rights, while cities often possess junior rights. The pueblos in the Middle Rio Grande have the oldest and most senior water rights—and the amount of water they actually “own” has never been quantified.

In fact, the entire Middle Rio Grande remains unadjudicated: the state has never officially determined the extent and ownership of water rights in the river.

Currently, the state says it lacks the funding to complete adjudication in the Middle Rio Grande or to incorporate climate projections into the ongoing rewrite of the state’s Water Plan.

But understanding water rights are just as important as understanding climate projections.

Writing in general about the western basins they studied, Dettinger, Udall and Georgakakos write:

Higher flows in the early spring will favor what have been junior and infrequently used storage rights, and senior rights may find less flow on the descending limb of the hydrograph through the summer and fall. In fact, some of the diversions thought in the 20th century to have reliable senior water rights may be without water during the hottest and driest periods of summer.

They also point out that “environmental water” will be in short supply during the driest periods of the summer.

july 138

Laura Paskus/NMID

As in Los Lunas during the summer of 2012, the Middle Rio Grande often dries during irrigation season.

In some western states, including Oregon and Colorado, rivers have “instream water rights.” A certain amount of water must legally flow through them—not for delivery to downstream users, but to support the river itself and its fish, wildlife and riparian vegetation.

That’s not the case in New Mexico, where rivers lack rights to their own waters.

When possible, water managers will try to keep stretches of the Middle Rio Grande wet for rare species, such as the Silvery Minnow, that are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. But nearly every year since 1996, stretches have typically dried sometime between June and late October, when farmers are diverting water from the river for irrigation season.

In southern New Mexico, the channel of the Rio Grande is dry most of the year, as seen in this photo near Las Cruces in January, 2014.

Laura Paskus/NMID

In southern New Mexico, the Rio Grande is dry most of the year, as seen near Las Cruces in January, 2014.

And in southern New Mexico, the Rio Grande stands dry for up to nine months of the year.

The paper isn’t all gloom and doom, however. The authors do have some good news. Sort of.

The challenges and decisions western water managers are facing are not necessarily new.

They write: “The West has already grappled with most of the problems that will face it in the future, however inadequately in some cases and however transformed some will be by larger trends in the future.”

So, what needs to happen?

The task now confronting westerners, they write, is to address those problems that have been acknowledged but not resolved — and to “prepare for the changes that will surely come.”

8 thoughts on “Is the Rio Grande Headed for “Permanent Drought”?

  1. I am From New Mexico. And it ticks me off, to NO END!! That MAN has Ruined the ENTIRE WORLD!!
    The Rio Grande does NOT belong to MAN! Never has, or Will. And to think, to Know everything that MAN has done, Cause of ‘THIER’ Greed, is Destorying Everything. MAN should have NEVER be allowed, to do things Like this!! Ever!

    Yes, Some People do Care. But NOT enough. To Stop what is Happening. The RIVER should be allowed to Flow, as it is SHOULD BE!! As Nature made it!!

    I can’t begin to say, How upset I am, to be a Human.. Because of everything MAN has done to the ENTIRE WORLD!!

    I honestly hope, EVERY DAM IS DESTORYED, AS it should have been to start off with. Everyone that is Daming the River, and Stealing NATURE’s Water, While Killing Many Fish, and Who knows How many Animals along the way, Should pay for what they have done! You can’t OWN the Earth. Everyone that’s a Part of this, and what is Happening to Our River’s Should pay the Price.

    I am speaking Pure Honest!!! MAN should have NEVER EVER be Allowed to do, all the Damage They have done. I honestly hope, ALL who are to Blame PAY for EVERYTHING, and EVERY Animal, Fish, and more along the way, they have Caused to DIE! Cause of thier GREED AND STEALING!!

    Truth is TRUTH.. MAN will NEVER EVER OWN THE EARTH!!

    They should pay for Everything, that THEY have Done!!

  2. Historically, New Mexico has dry years when the Atlantic Ocean (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation) is warm and the Pacific Ocean (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) is cold. The Pacific, El Nino aside, has been cold since 2006. The Atlantic has been warm since 1994. However…the Atlantic is shifting to its cold phase. We’re likely about to enter a wetter 15 year stretch, starting around 2020. The dry stretch from 2006-2020 is very similar to the 1946-1962 dry stretch when the Pacific was cold and the Atlantic was warm.

  3. Great story. I look forward to your coverage of this important topic as we settle in to 2016. I’m curious how the reality of this current and foreseeable future impacts local and state economies and decisions among our elected leaders? How do we adopt a culture of resiliency such that our local communities, both environmentally and socioeconomically, don’t wither and blow away like so many tumbleweeds? It becomes increasingly concerning to know that those with the means, talent, and education are running to the exits- what will be left? As a parent of young children, I’m losing the heart to weather the storm, and must now consider leaving to ensure a future of opportunity for my kids.

    • Thanks for your comment. I agree that it’s easy to feel discouraged, but I hope that this project can help spur more discussions among New Mexicans about how we can ensure a sustainable future for the state. The challenges can seem overwhelming sometimes, but I also think there are opportunities for positive changes.

  4. Dr. Richard Seager (Columbia), Dr. Jonathan Overpeck (Arizona) and Dr. Richard Staehle (Arkansas) all present research on a permanent drought in the Southwest, best elucidated in the excellent ‘A Great Aridness’ by William DeBuys. As director of the Texas Drought Project, I deal with these issues, as well, and with the realization that our state’s patchwork of surface water laws, groundwater laws, historical water rights and the Rule of Capture harms our ability to adapt to climate chaos–and leaves us without the flexibility to meet challenges. I’ve studied our shared water future and it is bleak. Changes have to be made in how water is managed or the conflict, famine and population extinction in ancient times, as shown in DeBuys’ book, will occur yet again. Best work ever on this topic–I highly recommend.

Leave a Reply