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.

A Justiciable Controversy Concerning Water Rights

1962 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 1019-1022
Author(s):  
Don C. Piper
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Water Rights ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Significance

Sharing the waters of the Rio Grande and the Colorado Rivers, the United States and Mexico enjoy a natural resource of considerable economic significance.

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.

Water Coda, with No End in Sight

2018 ◽  
pp. 177-186
Author(s):  
Eric P. Perramond
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Data Sharing ◽  
Water Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Water Sharing ◽  
Water Users ◽  
Positive Results

Adjudication created an adversarial relationship between the state and New Mexicans, as well as between different water users in New Mexico. This chapter considers whether altering the purpose and process of adjudication might yet produce some positive results if the assumption of water sharing, not hard and fast prior-appropriation property rights, becomes the normative assumption by the state. The state could improve its data sharing and transparency to enable greater flexibility in using adjudication to a different end. Yet understanding New Mexico’s struggles over defining water rights offers lessons. The implications of resolving these issues speak directly to the ongoing water struggles in many other western states in the United States and in other countries where water allocations are already a concern.

scholarly journals Gradient Self-Potential Logging in the Rio Grande to Identify Gaining and Losing Reaches across the Mesilla Valley

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 1331
Author(s):  
Scott Ikard ◽  
Andrew Teeple ◽  
Delbert Humberson
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Surface Water ◽  
Electric Potential ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
The United States ◽  
Aquifer System ◽  
Diversion Dam ◽  
Gains And Losses ◽  
Self Potential

The Rio Grande/Río Bravo del Norte (hereinafter referred to as the “Rio Grande”) is the primary source of recharge to the Mesilla Basin/Conejos-Médanos aquifer system in the Mesilla Valley of New Mexico and Texas. The Mesilla Basin aquifer system is the U.S. part of the Mesilla Basin/Conejos-Médanos aquifer system and is the primary source of water supply to several communities along the United States–Mexico border in and near the Mesilla Valley. Identifying the gaining and losing reaches of the Rio Grande in the Mesilla Valley is therefore critical for managing the quality and quantity of surface and groundwater resources available to stakeholders in the Mesilla Valley and downstream. A gradient self-potential (SP) logging survey was completed in the Rio Grande across the Mesilla Valley between 26 June and 2 July 2020, to identify reaches where surface-water gains and losses were occurring by interpreting an estimate of the streaming-potential component of the electrostatic field in the river, measured during bankfull flow. The survey, completed as part of the Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program, began at Leasburg Dam in New Mexico near the northern terminus of the Mesilla Valley and ended ~72 kilometers (km) downstream at Canutillo, Texas. Electric potential data indicated a net losing condition for ~32 km between the Leasburg Dam and Mesilla Diversion Dam in New Mexico, with one ~200-m long reach showing an isolated saline-groundwater gaining condition. Downstream from the Mesilla Diversion Dam, electric-potential data indicated a neutral-to-mild gaining condition for 12 km that transitioned to a mild-to-moderate gaining condition between 12 and ~22 km downstream from the dam, before transitioning back to a losing condition along the remaining 18 km of the survey reach. The interpreted gaining and losing reaches are substantiated by potentiometric surface mapping completed in hydrostratigraphic units of the Mesilla Basin aquifer system between 2010 and 2011, and corroborated by surface-water temperature and conductivity logging and relative median streamflow gains and losses, quantified from streamflow measurements made annually at 16 seepage-measurement stations along the survey reach between 1988 and 1998 and between 2004 and 2013. The gaining and losing reaches of the Rio Grande in the Mesilla Valley, interpreted from electric potential data, compare well with relative median streamflow gains and losses along the 72-km long survey reach.

Territorial and Early Statehood Periods

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresita Majewski ◽  
Lauren E. Jelinek
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Cultural Heterogeneity ◽  
Terra Incognita ◽  
Formative Time ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Historical Trajectory

The archaeology of the territorial and early statehood periods (1850–1917) in the American Southwest was virtually terra incognita until the advent of government-mandated archaeology in the 1960s. Subsequent work has shown that historical archaeology has much to contribute to a fuller understanding of this dynamic and formative time in U.S. history. Historical-archaeological investigations have demonstrated that although the United States formally exerted control over Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico by the last half of the nineteenth century, the interactions among its Indigenous, Spanish, and Mexican inhabitants strongly influenced the territory’s historical trajectory into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This chapter provides a historic context and a selective overview of archaeological studies that relate to the key themes of shifting economies and cultural heterogeneity.

scholarly journals Cash versus Lotteries: COVID-19 Vaccine Incentives Experiment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond M Duch ◽  
Adrian Barnett ◽  
Maciej Filipek ◽  
Laurence Roope ◽  
Mara Violato ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Odds Ratio ◽  
Health Benefits ◽  
Credible Interval ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vaccine Uptake ◽  
Random Assignment

Governments are considering financial incentives to increase vaccine uptake to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Incentives being offered include cash-equivalents such as vouchers or being entered into lotteries. Our experiment involved random assignment of 1,628 unvaccinated participants in the United States to one of three 45 second informational videos promoting vaccination with messages about: (a) health benefits of COVID-19 vaccines (control); (b) being entered into lotteries; or (c) receiving cash equivalent vouchers. After seeing the control health information video, 16% of individuals wanted information on where to get vaccinated. This compared with 14% of those assigned to the lottery video (odds ratio of 0.82 relative to control: 95% credible interval 0.57-1.17) and 22% of those assigned to the cash voucher video (odds ratio of 1.53 relative to control: 95% credible interval 1.11-2.11). These results support greater use of cash vouchers to promote COVID-19 vaccine uptake and do not support the use of lottery incentives.

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