HR: 13:40h
AN: H33G-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Groundwater Budget Analysis of Cross Formational Flow: Hueco Bolson (Texas and Chihuahua)
AU: * Hutchison, W R
EM: bhutchison@epwu.org
AF: El Paso Water Utilities, PO Box 511, El Paso, TX 79961 United States
AB: Groundwater from the Hueco Bolson supplies the majority of municipal water in El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, the largest international border community in the world. For over 100 years, water managers and researchers have been developing an understanding of Hueco Bolson groundwater occurrence and movement, and the interaction between surface water and groundwater. Since 2001, isotopic studies of groundwater chemistry on both sides of the border have provided valuable insights into the occurrence of groundwater and its historic movement. Numerical groundwater flow models of the area have been developed and used since the 1970s. The results of the most recent model were used to develop a detailed analysis of the groundwater inflows, outflows and storage change of the entire area and subregions of the model domain from 1903 to 2002. These detailed groundwater budgets were used to quantify temporal and spatial flow changes that resulted from groundwater pumping: induced inflow of surface water, decreased natural outflows, and storage declines. In addition, the detailed groundwater budgets were used to quantify the changes in cross formational flow between the Rio Grande Alluvium and the Hueco Bolson, as well as the changes in vertical flow within the Hueco Bolson. The groundwater budget results are consistent with the results of the isotopic analyses, providing a much needed confirmation of the overall conceptual model of the numerical model. In addition, the groundwater budgets have provided information that has been useful in further interpreting the results of the isotopic analyses.
DE: 1829 Groundwater hydrology
DE: 1830 Groundwater/surface water interaction
DE: 1847 Modeling
DE: 1876 Water budgets
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005