Snow, the Great River, and the Desert

While many major rivers around the world originate from alpine snowpacks in mountain regions, some experience the extreme contrast of flowing through harsh desert environments downriver. One such stream is the Rio Grande which rises in the San Juan and the Sangre de Christo mountains of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. Eventually, the snow fed Rio Grande flows through North America's largest desert, the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico, and simultaneously becomes part of the border between the United States and Mexico. As is often true, urban areas develop along the river corridors rather than in more inaccessible mountain regions. This demographic preference tends to isolate the vast majority of population in the Rio Grande, who are dependent on water for their livelihoods, from the mountain snowpacks where the flow is generated. Ironically then, snow is seldom viewed as the source of the much needed water flowing through the desert by the majority of the basin's population. In arid regions of the western U.S., water demand far exceeds the water supply, and water use is apportioned under the doctrine of prior appropriation with the oldest right getting the first use of water. The increasing population in urban areas does not usually have a right to use the water flowing through the desert unless water rights have been purchased by municipalities from the major category of water user in these basins, namely, irrigated agriculture. In the entire Rio Grande basin, irrigation makes up 80% of the consumptive use of water. Additionally, basin compacts and international treaties apportion water between states and countries. Because these formal agreements were based on above average runoff years, there is little flexibility in changing the use of water, particularly in dry to normal runoff years. Most of the older water rights in the Rio Grande, especially the upper basin, are supplied by snowmelt. This leaves the lower basin to depend upon rainfall-produced runoff occurring mostly during the sporadic summer monsoon season. Water harvesting techniques which promote heterogeneous water accumulation or production can effectively make more water available in certain areas at the expense the expense of nearby areas. The use of water ponding dikes on arid rangeland can promote increased native vegetation productivity through increases in soil moisture. Stock tanks lined with impervious material are also used to collect whatever runoff that is generated for later use. Desert dwellers living along rivers must rely on conservation measures and ingenuity in order to come up with a very limited water resource to survive. This survival is continually in doubt because population(and consequently water demand) continues to grow in these arid regions while the water supply remains relatively constant.