1. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation’s
Directorate for Education and Human Resources (TUES-1245025, IUSE-
1612248, IUSE-1725347). Questions, contact education-AT-unavco.org
WATER RESOURCES AND CHALLENGES
Unit 2 Preparation Slides
Version: February 2020
2. OUTLINE
1. Unit 2.1 – High Plains Aquifer
1. Groundwater Mining: a Global Problem
2. The all-important High Plains Aquifer
2. Unit 2.2 – Western Mountain Watershed
1. Mountains - Water towers of the West
2. Introduction to the study area in Southern Rocky Mountains
3. Droughts, Fires, and Floods
3. 1. GROUNDWATER MINING: A GLOBAL PROBLEM
These figures are from Konikow, 2011
See also Figure 2 from Famiglietti, 2014
Konikow, Geophysical Res.
Letters, 2011
NASA EarthObservatory
4. 2. THE HIGH PLAINS AQUIFER
• Underlies >100 million acres
across 8 states
• ~One-third of American
irrigated croplands are
irrigated with water
pumped from HPA
– grain for food, livestock,
ethanol
• Over 80% of residents
within HPA rely on it for
drinking water
6. HPA CLIMATE
• Gets drier and higher in
elevation from east to
west
• Insufficient rainfall for
most crops, so farmers
irrigate from HPA.
• From 1949 to 1980,
irrigated acres went from
2.1 million to 13.7 million
• Aquifer recharged
(slowly) by rainfall, rivers,
and small lakes
Higher
Drier
Lower
Wetter
8. 2014 USGS STUDY
• Widespread groundwater
declines in HPA since 1950
• Worse in southern HPA
9. READINGS AND RESOURCES FOR UNIT 2.1
• The High Plains Aquifer - Can we make it last? [GSA Today]
• Physical and Cultural setting of the High Plains Aquifer [USGS]
• Lessons from the High Plains Aquifer [AGI]
• The Global Groundwater Crisis [Nature]
• GRACE tracking water around globe [NASA Video]
• High Plains Aquifer groundwater network [USGS]
• USGS Website on 2013 report on HPA [USGS]
• Water-level change in the HPA system [USGS Video]
• Satellites investigating a stressed aquifer [NASA Earth
Observatory]
13. STUDY AREA FOR 2.2
• Watershed includes
areas over 13,000’
• Vallecito Ck ->
Vallecito Res ->
Los Piños River
• LPR water diverted
into irrigation ditches
for agricultural users
• Water in reservoir
also provides storage
for Bayfield, Ignacio
municipal use
15. INTRODUCTION TO THE UNIT 2.2 STUDY AREA
Vallecito
Reservoir
Ignacio, CO
Bayfield, CO
Irrigated crops
and pasture
Los Piños
River
San Juan Mountains
Vallecito Creek
16. INTRODUCTION TO THE UNIT 2.2 STUDY AREA
• Vallecito Reservoir
summer
recreation
destination
(boating, fishing,
vacation homes)
• Also provides
water storage and
flood control for
downstream
communities
17.
18.
19. DROUGHT % IN THE COLORADO RIVER BASIN, CO
2002 2018
21. READINGS AND RESOURCES FOR UNIT 2.2
LOCAL:
• Four Corners drought goes beyond extreme; No relief in sight [Cortez Journal]
• Conditions feeding 416 Fire could be 'New Normal' [Westword - 06/13/2018]
• Colorado's 2018 Fire Season was one of the worst yet, and it's not over yet
[Denver Post - 08/18/2018]
• Lingering Colorado River drought could lead to shortages [Scientific
American]
• Bayfield may tap reserve water in Vallecito Reservoir [Durango Herald -
05/31/2018]
• Southwest Colorado in 'exceptional drought' [Pine River Times - 04/25/2018]
• Receding shoreline leaves dock high and dry at Vallecito [Durango Herald -
07/16/2018]
• Flood Warnings Continue [Pine River Times, 06/12/2015]
BIG PICTURE:
• Declining snowpack over western U.S. mapped at finer scale [ScienceDaily]
• Snowpack levels show dramatic declines across western U.S. [ScienceDaily]
• Dramatic declines in snowpack in the western US [Nature]
• Killing the Colorado - What you need to know [ProPublica]
Editor's Notes
This presentation is not necessary for all classes; nor would all instructors use all the slides as a full presentation. Having the images handy may be helpful as questions arise when students work through the exercises.
A variety of water measurement methods show that groundwater aquifers from around the world are being depleted.
The left image from Konikow, 2011, (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011GL048604/abstract) was derived from a wide range of methods including water level, modeling, and pumpage.
The right image from NASA (also detailed in Famiglietti, 2014) was based on GRACE data (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment).
Left image: Konikow, 2011 – AGU journals allows use of published image for educational purposes
Right image: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/earthmatters/2014/11/05/earths-disapearing-groundwater/ (J.T. Reager, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
Just a few points to motivate interest in the HPA, and explain why we are studying it with this module!
Map figure created by module authors.
Example of center-pivot irrigation as seen from space. Green circles / partial circles represent center-pivot irrigation fields, likely using water pumped from the HPA. Outside of irrigated fields, the landscape is brown and parched. This figure shows how water from the HPA is able to transform the High Plains from a semi-arid. brown landscape to a rich, green one.
Figure credit: module authors. Imagery layer provided by ESRI.
Map figure from USGS: https://ne.water.usgs.gov/ogw/hpwlms/images/precipmap.jpg
Context for image: https://ne.water.usgs.gov/ogw/hpwlms/physsett.html
Figure shows percent area of the HPA experiencing drought from 2000-2018. Darker shades imply a more severe stage of drought.
Image: https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Data/Timeseries.aspx (US Drought Monitor)
The U.S. Drought Monitor is jointly produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Image courtesy of NDMC.
Report in module files and available here: https://ne.water.usgs.gov/ogw/hpwlms/files/HPAq_WLC_pd_2013_SIR_2014_5218_pubs_brief.pdf
Accessed from this site on Jan 13, 2019: https://ne.water.usgs.gov/ogw/hpwlms/pubs.html
McGuire, V.L., 2014, Water-Level Changes and Change in Water in Storage in the High Plains Aquifer, Predevelopment to 2013 and 2011–13: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5218
Photo credit: Jon Harvey
In the western US, mountains collect snowfall in winter months, which melts in the spring and summer. This seasonal pattern dominates the hydrologic cycle in most mountainous areas of the interior western US. The timing of meltwater tends to coincide with the growing season, so mountain snowpack is critical for the following year’s agricultural efforts.
Photo credit: Jon Harvey
Snowpack stored in the higher elevations of the La Plata mountains in southwest Colorado provides water to rivers and communities in the region.
Photo credit: Jon Harvey
High-elevation snowpack melts to feed rivers that travel into arid areas of the West, creating ‘rivers of life’ through them. Here snowpack in the Abajo Mountains fo Utah towers over the arid desert landscape.
Shaded relief of terrain in study area showing local landmarks and locations of stream gages, lake level gage for Vallecito Reservoir, and Snotel station. This view shows the high-elevation watershed, the mid-elevation reservoir, and the lower-elevation irrigated lowlands.
Figure from module authors.
Oblique view of terrain in study area showing local landmarks. This view shows the high-elevation watershed, the mid-elevation reservoir, and the lower-elevation, irrigated lowlands (patchwork of fields and other lands).
Oblique view of terrain in study area showing local landmarks. This view shows the high-elevation watershed, the mid-elevation reservoir, and the lower-elevation, irrigated lowlands (patchwork of fields and other lands).
Drought conditions across the U.S. in Summer 2002. Star indicates location of study area in Unit 2.2.
Drought conditions across the U.S. in Summer 2018. Star indicates location of study area in Unit 2.2.
This figure shows the percent area of the Colorado River watershed (including the study area in 2.2) experiencing drought conditions of a particular severity. The two particularly dry years we just looked at, 2002 and 2018, are visible as upward spikes in the percent area of D3-Extreme and D4-Exceptional drought conditions.
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Data/Timeseries.aspx
The “416” Fire burns in the San Juan Mountains north of Durango, CO. This wildfire started on June 1, 2018, after a winter with historically low snowpack. The location of the study area in unit 2.2 is only 15 miles east of this fire. There are several news articles related to the 2018 drought year and associated wildfires on the next slide and on the module webpage.
Photo Credit: Jon Harvey
