The impact of climate change on water resources will in part be determined by human activity and human response to changes in water availability. This research focuses on three distinct, yet inter-related areas of water resource concern in New Mexico; 1) traditional acequia water management systems and the accompanying socio-cultural institutions; 2) agro-ecosystems; and 3) urban demand.

Acequias are the traditional water management system of rural northern New Mexico. Their communal governance and ‘ditch irrigation’ management systems provide unique physiographic and cultural elements to help understand the effects of changing mountain hydrology on land and water use, ecosystem change, and stream flow. Acequias may play a central role in the interactions between surface water and groundwater and may modulate and change the timing of the transmission of hill slope runoff to stream flow. Throughout New Mexico, small and large scale agricultural irrigation constitutes the greatest portion of water use by far, and agriculture has profound impacts on the natural hydrologic systems of the State. Coping with and adapting to climatic changes for all human activities will depend, in part, on a superior understanding of these highly inter-related human and physical systems and how they simultaneously interact.

• Install new in-situ infrastructure and use high-resolution satellite data and simulation models to characterize acequia system flow distribution and surface-groundwater hydrological interactions.
• Document the ancient customs and traditions of acequia systems during times of climate variability.
• Develop and use data and simulation models to improve the understanding and management of water in New Mexico’s agro-environmental systems.
• Significantly increase overall system dynamics economic-behavioral-physical modeling capabilities via development of a collaborative interdisciplinary team and through expansion of modeling tools.