It has been said that watersheds and aquifers ignore political boundaries.
This phenomenon is often the reason for extensive regulation of surface -water
and ground -water resources which are shared by two or more political entities.
Regulation is often the result of years of litigation over who really owns the
water, how much is owned, and how much is available for future use. Groundwater
models are sometimes used as quantitative tools which aid in the decision
making process regarding appropriation and regulation of these scarce, shared,
water resources. The following few paragraphs detail the occurrences in the
Lower Rio Grande Basin which led to the current ground -water modeling effort.
New Mexico, Texas and Mexico have wrestled forever over the rights to
the Lower Rio Grande and the aquifers of the Rio Grande Basin (Figure 1). As
early as 1867, due to a flood event on the Rio Grande, Texas and Mexico were
disputing the new border created by the migrating Rio Grande. During the
1890's, the users upstream from the Mesilla and El Paso Valleys were diverting
and applying so much of the Rio Grande that the Mesilla and El Paso valley
farmers litigated in order to apportion and guarantee the supply. In the recent
past, disputes over who may use the ground -water resources of the region and the
effect of surface- water uses on aquifer water levels resulted in litigation between
El Paso, Texas, and New Mexico.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/620116 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Hamilton, Susan Lynne, Maddock, Thomas III |
| Contributors | Department of Hydrology & Water Resources, The University of Arizona |
| Publisher | Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Technical Report |
| Source | Provided by the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources. |
| Rights | Copyright © Arizona Board of Regents |
| Relation | Technical Reports on Hydrology and Water Resources, No. 93-020 |
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