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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. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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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).