Conjunctive Availability of Surface and Ground Water in the Albuquerque Area, New Mexico: A Modelling Approach

Abstract

This study is part of an interdisciplinary analysis of the economic evaluation of the water resources of the Rio Grande region of New Mexico. It was elemental in obtaining dynamic water availabilities in time and space. The relationship of dynamic ground‐water availability and aquifer behavior under projected stresses was modeled by a ground‐water system simulator based on a mass balance of the hydrologic basin. Conditions from extreme dry to extreme wet were modeled, combined with a range of different water demands. A vast amount of information was thus obtained in the form of aquifer responses for different conditions. An analogous relationship was constructed from these data by stepwise multiple regression analysis and was of the following form λd = f (dn, L) where λd = change in water‐table elevation for the time period considered, dn= water‐table elevation at the end of the previous time period, and L = a lump factor combining surface‐water inflow and outflow, precipitation, and beneficial and nonbeneficial water uses. Other results readily obtainable from the simulation runs are river accretion or depletion curves as a function of time. These curves show the diversion effects of groundwater pumping upon the river.

Three-dimensional model simulation of steady-state ground-water flow in the Albuquerque-Belen Basin, New Mexico

“…Some of the earliest studies to evaluate the occurrence of ground water in the middle Rio Grande Rift were by Lee (1907), Bloodgood (1930), Bryan (1938), Theis (1938), and Theis and Taylor (1939). Studies to evaluate the geology and ground-water resources in this area were later conducted by Spiegel (1955), Titus (1963), Lansford and others (1973), Kelly and others (1974), Trainer (1974), Brutsaert and Gebhard (1975), Hiss and others (1975), and West and Broadhurst (1975). For more comprehensive bibliographies of the geology and hydrology in the vicinity of the Albuquerque-Belen Basin, the reader is referred to Wright (1978), Stone and others (1979), and Borton (1980).…”