NEW MEXICO PROJECTS

• Major Projects
  • Middle Rio Grande Piezometers
  • Cross Sections on the Rio Grande
  • Rio Grande Compact and Pecos River Commission
  • Estimating evaportive losses: Jemez to Albq.
  • Rio Grande Travel Times
  • Urban Storm-Water Prog.
  • Flood Analysis
  • Mesilla Basin

• NAWQA Program
  • Rio Grande NAWQA

• Recently Completed Projects
  • Questa Mine, Red River Valley Basin
  • Travel time of Ground Water, Roswell Basin
  • Middle Rio Grande Basin
  • Monitoring and Pumpage in Albq
  • Contamination in Grants, NM
  • Flood Analysis, Navajo Nation
  • Chemical Modeling, Albuquerque
  • WIPP

• National Projects
  • USGS measures a century of floods
  • Rio Puerco Basin Studies

USGS IN YOUR STATE

USGS Water Science Centers are located in each state.

Ground-Water Monitoring in the Espanola Basin Piezometers

Project Number: 8636-9L500, 8636-9L600
Project Chief: Joe Beman
Cooperator: NM Office of the State Engineer; City of Santa Fe
Period of Project: 1997-Present

In 1996, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the City of Santa Fe, and the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer began a drilling program to install specialized monitoring wells in the Espanola basin. The purpose of the program is to monitor hydraulic head at specific depths in the aquifer. Most of these specialized wells, called piezometers, are located in areas between major water-production wells so that data collected are more representative of general conditions in the aquifer rather than conditions influenced primarily by the daily on-and-off cycles of the production wells. Because hydraulic head varies vertically as well as horizontally throughout the aquifer system, piezometers are completed at different depths, typically in groups of three. Hydraulic head is monitored by continuously measuring the depth to water in each piezometer and recording a measurement every hour. To ensure the accuracy of the recording device, measurements are made by hand every 4 to 8 weeks using steel or electric tape.

Comparison of water levels from year to year can show trends in water-level decline or recovery in the aquifer system. Data from each piezometer in the network are viewable by way of the links listed below. Locations of wells within the Espanola Basin can be viewed by clicking on: Location Map link.