SCERP Efforts Employing GIS in Water Resources Research

on the US-Mexico Border

Dr. Christopher Brown

New Mexico State University Department of Geography

2006 SCERP/USGS GIS Summit

UTEP – 10 April 2006

Acknowledgements

• Southwest Consortium for Environmental Research and Policy (SCERP) for funding

• Richard Wright and Fabian Lozano for work on previous iteration of work

• Jean Parcher and Jim Stefanov for USGS support and collaboration

• Alfredo Granados, Nori Koehler, and Janet Greenlee for assisting with GIS work in the Paso del Norte region

SCERP’s History of GIS Work

• Many smaller scale projects have been funded in last 15 years (www.scerp.org)

• SCERP is a natural vehicle to advance broader comprehensive effort– Border wide focus, many partners, much talent– Long term interest and commitment to GIS

work

• Connection with USGS allows multiple scaled effort with broad scope

Selected highlights of SCERP GIS work

• SDSU lead many efforts in 1990s to advance binational GIS work

• Transboundary Watershed Research Program advanced by ASU and SDSU researchers

• University of Utah use of GIS in range of areas• Recent water resources vulnerability research

– Paired basins work of SDSU and NMSU researchers– Examined Tijuana and Rio Grande Basins– Preliminary outcomes also identified crucial data

fusion issues

Early SDSU Tijuana Basin Work

• Workshops in 1990s examined basic issues involved in integrated binational GIS work

• Pioneering development of seamless binational watershed GIS database

• Award winning mapping work (NGS award)• Support for wide range of applied GIS work

– Binational soils mapping (Askov 1997)– Examination of land use and water quality work (Brown,

Placchi and Gersberg 1998)– Instrumental in Tijuana River Watershed Visioning

Project (Ganster and Comer 2004-2006)

Transboundary Watershed

Research Program • Joint project of SDSU and ASU researchers• Goal was to explore GIS and water resource

modeling in the San Pedro and Tijuana Basins• Specifically, Better Assessment Science

Integrating point and Nonpoint Sources (BASINS) software was employed in two binational watersheds

• Also explored USEPA Index of Watershed Indicators (IWI) approach to develop specific indicators in Tijuana Basin

University of Utah’s Research

• Exploration of how best to communicate results of GIS to user groups (Hepner 1997)

• Use of GIS to model of contaminant pathways and human exposure in the Nogales Region (Finco, Hepner, and Miller 1997)

• Use of GIS to examine non-point source pollution in Imperial Valley (Finco and Hepner 1998)

Paired Basins Vulnerability Work

• SDSU and NMSU funded by SCERP to pursue paired basins work in the Tijuana and Rio Grande Basins

• Involved Binational Experts Panel held in Las Cruces, NM in 2003 , with goals of:– identifying sources of vulnerability, – identifying geo-spatial data needed to research these

sources– development of geo-spatial products to portray

regional variability of vulnerability

NMSU/UACJ Watershed Vulnerability project

• Hydroregionalization of the Paso del Norte study area delineated study area

• Mapping of specific indicators of interest, based on Experts Panel ideas

• Development of a GIS data archive being served on the Web – more to come later

• Related identification of gaps in data coverage and data fusion challenges

Specific indicators developed

• Evapotranspiration is developed as a dryness measure after Hurd et al 1999.

• Standardized Precipitation Indicator developed as a measure of drought and water stress

• Exploration of surface water quality issues

• Vulnerability of groundwater resources more difficult due to cross-border data differences

Insights gained from review

• SCERP researchers have been successful at integrated, collaborative GIS-based research

• Recent work has identified key data fusion issues, of much importance to goals of Summit

• Importance of cross-border University collaboration – Personal experiences with COLEF, UACJ, and ITESM are

especially illustrative– Facilitates two way exchange of data and collaborative

GIS analysis

• Recent connection with USGS offers much promise for enhanced capability

USGS Binational GIS InitiativeThe project proposes to encompass the entire U.S.-Mexico border region as indicated by the DOI U.S.-Mexico Border Field Coordinating Committee’s (FCC) Water Resources Issue Team

U.S.-Mexico border region as delineated by the FCC using watersheds and protected lands (Woodward and Durall 1996).