The Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Basin (RGB) is one of the largest river systems in the U.S., and the critical basis of economies across three states and two countries. Nearly all of the system’s surface water is generated in the northern RGB; and most (±80%) of this is allocated to agriculture. Yet, the Basin faces increasingly more complex ideas about and demands on water resource management from agricultural innovation and urban, industrial, ecosystem restoration, and recreational sources, while also facing a projected drop of up to one-third of water supply by the end of the 21stcentury due to climate change. Historically, management of Basin water and land resources has occurred on a fragmented basis across multiple jurisdictions and by multiple kinds of entities, public and private, with local water resource allocation dominated by the principle of first appropriation. The only governance mechanisms with a Basin-wide perspective are the legal agreements between the three states and two countries that focus on water flow and quantity. Our research focuses on the local conditions and criteria driving water resource management in multiple segments across the entire RGB, and how these are responding to both the complex demands and impacts of the Anthropocene.
Results/Conclusions
We conducted over 8 months of ethnographic research throughout the RGB, from the headwaters in Colorado southward, with water managers and decision-makers that included state and municipal water engineers, federal agencies, First Nations, conservation and irrigation districts, and members of ranching, agricultural, development, and recreational sectors. We focused on cognitive, social, political, historical, environmental, and economic dynamics influencing water resources management, historically and under conditions of drought and changing societal demands. While Basin-wide levels of coordination and planning are still elusive, we find significant experiments in water management and governance emerging at regional (sub-basin) levels that attempt to address such issues as: conjunctive management of surface and groundwater; water shortage sharing; flexibility in application of water rights among different users and uses; and the incorporation of other river and watershed management objectives. Nevertheless, many of these initiatives focus on increasing water cycling and storage within particular segments of the Basin rather than passing it on to users in lower reaches, and we explore how water users and managers describe their objectives for water management, including how they use concepts of ‘conservation’, ‘efficiency’, and ‘saving water’, which may vary significantly from how ecologists and conservationists use them.