Cultivating Local Knowledge with Telemetry Monitoring of Traditional Irrigation Networks in the Rio Hondo Watershed, Northern New Mexico, USA.

Abstract:

Commonly, complex water sharing agreements in acequia irrigation communities of northern New Mexico are based on water data gathered irregularly by local water managers. The Rio Hondo watershed in northern New Mexico is experiencing drought-induced flow reductions and changing water sharing dynamics between the acequia (traditional irrigation ditch) networks, which rely on water from the same river. These changes in surface water availability and water sharing agreements resulted in local water managers expressing a need for available data to appropriately distribute water between irrigators.

Founded on the basis of public impact research within the hydrologic sciences, this research is just the beginning of giving irrigators the ability to become stewards for local water resources information by having real-time access to data through a web interface. A telemetry monitoring network was installed in collaboration between researchers and irrigators on participating irrigation ditches to remotely collect water stage, discharge, and conductivity data every 15 minutes. Data are automatically updated on a web interface which was first made available to the acequia communities for the 2020 irrigation season. Researchers hypothesize that improving water data accessibility will likely increase community adaptive capacity in this rural, traditionally irrigated valley.

Impact of the telemetry system will be evaluated with before and after surveys targeting several community-level adaptive capacity indicators. With the telemetry network, we expect the acequia leaders will be more prepared to allocate water during low-flow periods, the telemetry system will cultivate healthy inter-acequia collaboration (Ellison et al., 2019), and facilitate long-term water data transparency for the valley’s water managers and users. The post-survey to quantify changes in adaptive capacity after exposure to the telemetry monitoring system will be distributed after the 2020 irrigation season.