Life Sciences Commons^™

Surface-Water Groundwater Interactions In The Middle Rio Grande, Nm Implications For Bank Storage And Native Species, Tom Heller

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

Riparian zones are important for ecological purposes and ecosystem processes, and are valued for aesthetic, recreational, cultural, and historical reasons. The declining integrity of cottonwood-dominated riparian systems in the Middle Rio Grande (MRG) of central New Mexico has been evident for several decades, of which the largest cause has been the severe alterations riparian hydrology. While cottonwood germination responses to changing flood regimes have been well studied, the response to changing groundwater dynamics - and the suitability of groundwater regimes in the MRG - is less well understood. This study used pressure transducer groundwater datasets installed in the Rio Grande …