Middle Rio Grande Climate Change Hydrographs

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This project involves the construction of a series of climate change hydrographs for the Middle Rio Grande in New Mexico at the Bernardo, San Acacia and San Marcial Gage locations. The methodology includes: 1) Collect historical climatic and hydrologic data for watersheds associated with the Middle Rio Grande within the project area. 2) Select a range of climate change scenarios that represent near term (years 2020-2049) and long term (years 2070-2099) time periods, including wet, middle and dry conditions. 3) Produce future climate conditions for each watershed based on historical data and the selected climate change scenarios. Base these predictions on IPCC models. Document the scenarios chosen and reasons for choosing these. 4) Produce spatially varied monthly time series climate data for the two (near term and long term) 30 year climatic periods. For each period, run 3 scenarios: wet, middle and dry. The result will be 6 sets of 30 year climatic simulations for the watersheds associated with the project area. 5) Develop methodology to calibrate the climatic data into a hydrograph simulation model. This would use the above sets of climatic simulations as input. Output from the model will be 6 sets of 30 year monthly hydrograph simulations. This dataset will, in turn, be calibrated with the historic record for specific stream flow gages including, but not limited to, the Rio Grande at Bernardo, the Rio Grande Floodway at San Acacia, and the Rio Grande Floodway at San Marcial. 6) Provide additional hydrologic and climatologic assistance, as needed and budget permitting, to the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS), Southwest Region’s climate change pilot project.

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