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In 2001 Tidwell and Sandia researcher Howard Passell began working with the Middle Rio Grande Water Assembly — representing agricultural, urban, and environmental interests in a three-county region in central New Mexico — to develop an integrated surface water and groundwater model. The water plan that resulted from the project was accepted by the state engineer’s office in late 2003 as part of statewide water planning, says Tidwell.
The bigger value of the computer models might be in the collaborative process itself, Tidwell says. Local stakeholders are involved in building each model from the ground up for the specific water resource in question.
“We meet regularly with the stakeholders to discuss what’s important for the area, how decisions are made, and what the alternatives are,” he says. “When people see how the whole thing is built and how it works, they are more likely to accept its results.”
Helping develop the models forces many collaborators to confront inaccurate assumptions about water, says Tidwell. Some believe, for example, that use of low-flow appliances will save a lot of water. In reality most indoor water used is restored in a municipal treatment facility and returned to the environment. Thus, very little water is saved by low-flow appliances.
With a healthy level of disagreement at the table, participants often begin to understand the perspectives of those they are competing with for water. “It forces them to look at water as a system and to deal with its physics,” he says. “Without somebody cramming it down their throats, they come to understand the complexities and the need for a multidisciplinary approach.”
On the Gila River, as part of a project that began in October 2005 to allocate water awarded to New Mexico in the Arizona Water Settlements Act, Sandia worked with the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, USBR, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, environmental organizations, and the Southwestern New Mexico Water Planning Group to develop and test a computer-aided decision tool. The efforts have generated interest in expanding the model to address water issues in southwestern New Mexico more broadly.
In the Mimbres River basin, authorities are using a model devised by Sandia and the University of New Mexico to set up and test a water resources market, called a “water bank,” whereby irrigators trade water credits with other users, not only within the same ditch but across ditches and with domestic well owners.