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THE ECOSYSTEM RESPONSE TO RESTORATION: BIRDS AND VEGETATION IN THE COLORADO RIVER DELTA The floodplain of the Colorado River in Mexico, covering 12,000 hectares, experienced a recovery in response to inadvertent flows during the 1980s and 1990s. However, the basin has endured a severe drought since 2002, and the average flows been reduced from 93 m3/s in 1998, to 0.2 m3/s in the last 5 years. On the other hand, several restoration projects have been implemented in the floodplain since 2008, covering over 200 hectares. To evaluate the effect of the drought on vegetation and birds in the floodplain we conducted variable distance point counts and evaluated habitat characteristics at 136 sites, from 2002 to 2013....
RESTORATION CHALLENGES AND SUCCESSES IN MEXICO: PLANNING, PARTNERSHIPS, AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT In the last two decades, efforts to understand the impacts of Colorado River water management on the natural habitat in the Colorado River Delta have revealed significant restoration opportunities. Although less than 10% of original wetland area and less than 5% of cottonwood and willow forest remain in the Delta, small-scale restoration projects have been underway since 2002 to protect and enhance riparian and marsh habitat. However, scaling-up restoration efforts and securing water for instream flows in the Delta have proven to be politically challenging due to the Colorado River’s transboundary nature. Restoration...
Tags: Sonoran Institute
The Science and Policy of the First Environmental Flows to the Colorado River Delta The first transboundary flow of water for the environment was delivered to the Colorado River Delta in spring of 2014. This engineered mini-spring flood of 130 million cubic meters (105,000 acre-feet) was implemented as part of Minute 319, an addition to the 1944 U.S.-Mexico Water Treaty. Minute 319 is a temporary agreement, expiring in 2017. Teams of scientists from government agencies, universities, and environmental NGOs from both the U.S. and Mexico are measuring the surface flow rates, inundation, ground water recharge, ground water levels and subsurface flows, geomorphic change, recruitment, survival and health of vegetation,...
Just Add Water: Historic Return Of The Colorado River To Its Delta, United States And Mexico On May 15, 2014, the Colorado River reached the sea for the first time in decades. This was but one highlight of an unprecedented experiment in binational water management – the world’s first transboundary water allocation for the environment. Minute 319, signed by Mexico and the United States in 2012, changes the way the two countries share water in the over-allocated Colorado River basin. One of its provisions is a “pulse flow” of 105,000 acre-feet of water released from Morelos Dam into the parched Colorado River delta. Implemented in March-May 2014, the pulse flow was intended to emulate the ecological functions of...
Tags: The Nature Conservancy
A LANDSCAPE-SCALE RESTORATION EXPERIMENT: THE 2014 SPRING FLOOD FLOW RELEASE TO THE COLORADO RIVER DELTA, MEXICO The Colorado River delta was once a several-million acre expanse of marsh wetlands, riparian forest, and estuarine habitat located near the river’s mouth in Northwest Mexico (Glenn et al. 2001). However, the diversion of Colorado River water for human use in the arid western U.S. and northwestern Mexico resulted in the gradual drying of the delta with a subsequent loss of over 90% of original habitat (Glenn et al. 2001). Very little water has reached the delta since the era of dam construction on the Colorado River (Nagler et al. 2005), and the highly altered hydrologic regime and influx of invasive...
The depth of the water table, and fluctuations thereof, is a primary concern in hydrology. In riparian areas, the water table controls when and where vegetation grows. Fluctuations in the water table depth indicate changes in aquifer storage and variation in ET, and may also be responsible for the transport and degradation of contaminants. In the latter case, installation of monitoring wells is problematic because of the potential to create preferential flow pathways. We present a novel method for non-invasive water table monitoring using combined DC resistivity and repeat microgravity data. Resistivity profiles provide spatial resolution, but a quantifiable relation between resistivity changes and aquifer-storage...
Monitoring and modeling very large, rapid infiltration using geophysics during the 2014 Lower Colorado River pulse flow experiment In March and April 2014, an unprecedented experiment released over 100x106 cubic meters (81,000 acre-feet) of water from Morelos Dam into the normally-dry lower Colorado River below Yuma, Arizona, USA. More than half of the water released from Morelos Dam infiltrated within the limitrophe reach, a 32-km stretch between the Northern U.S.-Mexico International Boundary and the Southern International Boundary, a distance of just 32 river-kilometers. To characterize the spatial and temporal extent of infiltration, scientists from the US Geological Survey, Centro de Investigación Científica...
Tags: USGS
Geomorphic response in the limitrophe region of the Colorado River to the 2014 delta pulse flow, United States and Mexico On March 23, 2014, a portion of the Colorado River bypassed Morelos Dam, the last dam on the river, and flowed into the dry river channel of the Colorado River delta. This “pulse flow” was the result of an international agreement, Minute 319, which allowed Colorado River water to be stored and released for environmental restoration. The U.S. Geological Survey participated in monitoring effects of the pulse flow, with particular emphasis on the limitrophe reach of the river, which represents the international border for 30 km between Yuma, Arizona, USA and San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, MX. Our...
In March and April, 2014, an unprecedented experimental “pulse flow” with a total volume of over 100 million cubic meters (81,000 acre-feet) of water was released from Morelos Dam into the normally dry lower Colorado River below Yuma, Arizona, for the primary purpose of restoring native vegetation and habitat. Significant infiltration and attenuation of the flood peak occurred within the limitrophe reach that forms the US-Mexico border, with total volume reduced to 57 million cubic meters at the southerly international boundary at San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico (32 kilometers downstream). Groundwater levels in piezometers adjacent to the stream channel rose as much as 10 meters, and surface water/groundwater...
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