HR: 0800h
AN: H31C-0394    [Abstracts]
TI: A Semiarid Long-Term Hydrologic Observatory at the Continental Scale: The Upper R¡o Grande Basin
AU: Hogan, J F
EM: jhogan@hwr.arizona.edu
AF: Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona, 1133 East North Campus Drive Harshbarger Building, Tucson, AZ 85721 United States
AU: * Vivoni, E R
EM: vivoni@nmt.edu
AF: Department of Earth and Environmental Science, New Mexico Tech, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801 United States
AU: Bowman, R S
EM: bowman@nmt.edu
AF: Department of Earth and Environmental Science, New Mexico Tech, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801 United States
AU: Coonrod, J
EM: jcoonrod@unm.edu
AF: Department of Civil Engineering, University of New Mexico, 209 Tapy Hall, Albuquerque, NM 87131 United States
AU: Thomson, B M
EM: bthomson@unm.edu
AF: Department of Civil Engineering, University of New Mexico, 209 Tapy Hall, Albuquerque, NM 87131 United States
AU: Samani, Z
EM: zsamani@nmsu.edu
AF: Department of Civil and Geological Engineering, New Mexico State University, MSC 3CE, Las Cruces, NM 88003 United States
AU: Ferre, P T
EM: ty@hwr.arizona.edu
AF: Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona, 1133 East North Campus Drive Harshbarger Building, Tucson, AZ 85721 United States
AU: Phillips, F M
EM: phillips@nmt.edu
AF: Department of Earth and Environmental Science, New Mexico Tech, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801 United States
AU: Rango, A
EM: alrango@nmsu.edu
AF: USDA Agricultural Research Service, Jornada Experimental Range, MSC 3JER, Las Cruces, NM 88003 United States
AU: Rasmussen, R
EM: rasmus@ucar.edu
AF: National Center for Atmospheric Research, 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80307 United States
AU: Springer, E P
EM: everetts@lanl.gov
AF: Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, P.O. Box 1663, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Small, E E
EM: eric.small@colorado.edu
AF: Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2200 Colorado Ave., Boulder, CO 80309 United States
AB: Water availability is critical in arid and semiarid regions, which comprise 35 percent of the land area of the globe. In the Southwestern US, climate variability and landscape heterogeneity lead to strong gradients in hydrological processes, which in turn impact land-atmosphere interactions, ecological dynamics, biogeochemical cycles and geomorphic change. This complexity presents a fundamental challenge to our understanding of hydrology, one that is best addressed through long-term, systematic field and remote-sensing observations and numerical-model investigations. In this poster, we will present our plans to study the interaction of climate-landscape-vegetation and water using a nested set of instrumented sites within the Upper R¡o Grande, a continental-scale semiarid watershed. This complex watershed extends from the snow-dominated headwater basins in San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado, through the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico, Texas and Mexico, to the desert valley alluvial basins southeast of El Paso, Texas. As part of the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) plan for a network of Long-Term Hydrologic Observatories (LTHOs), the Upper R¡o Grande would represent the combination of mountain landscapes, semiarid to arid alluvial basin aquifers and riparian corridors that are characteristic of the Western United States. We will describe existing hydrologic, ecologic and atmospheric measurement infrastructure in the watershed and discuss plans for integrating these into a coherent network that provides a core set of scientific data products for the hydrologic community. Data products generated by the Upper R¡o Grande LTHO will also aid in the testing of coupled numerical models of the atmosphere-surface-groundwater system applied at high resolution over the region. The Upper R¡o Grande presents unique opportunities to test hydrologic hypotheses concerning surface water-groundwater interactions and their control on runoff response, solute transport and reactivity, and riparian ecological communities
UR: http://www.ees.nmt.edu/cuahsi/riogrande.htm
DE: 1829 Groundwater hydrology
DE: 1833 Hydroclimatology
DE: 1836 Hydrologic budget (1655)
DE: 1860 Runoff and streamflow
DE: 1894 Instruments and techniques
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting