HR: 0800h
AN: H51C-0658    [Abstracts]
TI: Modeling The Water Table In The Middle Rio Grande River Riparian Corridor
AU: * Akasheh, O Z
EM: o.a@aggiemail.usu.edu
AF: Utah State University, Utah State University BIE Department Old Main hill, Logan, UT 84322-4105, United States
AU: Neale, C M
EM: cneale@cc.usu.edu
AF: Utah State University, Utah State University BIE Department Old Main hill, Logan, UT 84322-4105, United States
AB: The Middle Rio Grande River (MRGR) is the main source of fresh water for the state of New Mexico. An arid area with low water resources created a situation where water is extensively diverted or stored to supply the high demand for municipalities and agricultural activities. The extensive water diversions over the last few decades has affected the composition of the native riparian vegetation such as cottonwood and coyote willow and enhanced the spread of invasive species harmful to the river system such as Tamarisk and Russian Olives. The river aquatic system has also been badly affected. The need to study the river hydrological processes and their relation with its health is important to preserve the river ecosystem. The water table within the riparian zone is intrinsically connected to the flows in the river. Large withdrawals of water by Tamarisk affect the surface flows, which coupled with the large diversions for irrigation result in a complicated river management problem. In this paper we describe the methodology used to spatially model the water table depth between the river and the adjacent drains parallel to the river. Water table readings are used to check the model. Evapotranspiration by the riparian vegetation is estimated and included in the soil moisture balance. The model runs as an application in ArcGIS. Spatial layers include soils and riparian vegetation maps obtained from the classification of airborne high resolution multispectral imagery.
DE: 1818 Evapotranspiration
DE: 1830 Groundwater/surface water interaction
DE: 1847 Modeling
DE: 1851 Plant ecology (0476)
DE: 1855 Remote sensing (1640)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting