LibGuides: Southwest Water Resources: Drought Information

State Resources

The New Mexico State Documents collection contains publications about water issues from

New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute
New Mexico State University
New Mexico Water Conference proceedings

Below you will find an example of the type of information these institutions produce.

Possible search terms for this subject area:

Drought, Climate Change, Hydrology, Office of the State Engineer, Interstate Stream Commission

Managing rangelands and cattle in drought-prone areas of the Southwest by Nick Ashcroft
Call Number: NM X 313.43 :B-816
Publication Date: 2016
New Mexico State University - Cooperative Extension Service - College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
Water resilience in a time of uncertainty : how can our water laws and policies better support water resilience? : a report of ideas for improving New Mexico water law and policy from the Utton Transboundary Resources Center's October 2014 conference by Adrian Oglesby
Call Number: NM X 961.46:370
Publication Date: 2016
New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute
Drought, salinity and invasive plants : a new model for sustainable water management by Geno A. Picchioni, professor, et. al.
Call Number: NM X 961.46:368
Publication Date: 2015
New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute

There are also many online resources produced by New Mexico agencies that deal with drought in New Mexico.

NM Office of the State Engineer - Drought Information

The Office of the State Engineer plans for drought year-round and we are dedicated to ensuring all New Mexicans have access to water. Everyone can play a part in conserving this precious resource because in a drought, every drop counts. ~~ Tom Blaine P.E., New Mexico State Engineer.

Some resources found here include; Snowpack Data, Fire Info, Drought FAQs, and Drought and Your Well, just to name a few.

New Mexico Governor's Drought Task Force

The Drought Task Force is chaired by the State Engineer and includes experts in water, the environment, wildfires, New Mexico recreation, agriculture and health. The current drought has impacted all New Mexicans. This web page provides information across many sectors of our state.

National Resources

Drought.gov

(NIDIS)National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) was formed under an interagency mandate to coordinate and integrate drought research and to create a national drought early warning information system (DEWS).

A Drought Early Warning System (DEWS) utilizes new and existing partner networks to optimize the expertise of a wide range of federal, tribal, state, local and academic partners in order to make climate and drought science readily available, easily understandable and usable for decision makers; and to improve the capacity of stakeholders to better monitor, forecast, plan for and cope with the impacts of drought.

NOAA provides a U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook in it's Climate Prediction Center. The outlook is updated about once amonth and can help you get a sense of what lies ahead.

Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS)

The Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS) program was established in 1998 as part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program. CLIMAS —housed at the University of Arizona's (UA) Institute of the Environment—is a collaboration between UA and New Mexico State University. The CLIMAS team is made up of experts from a variety of social, physical, and natural sciences who all work with partners across the Southwest to develop sustainable answers to regional climate challenges. Many of the resources found on their website are extremely useful. Two in particular are the CLIMAS Publications Database and the PDF Archive of the monthly SW Climate Outlook.

United States Drought Monitor

To find a current drought map visit the United States Drought Monitor. These weekly maps are a result of the collaboration between NOAA, the US Department of Agriculture, and The National Drought Migration Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. You can view a map of the entire United States, select a region, or select a specific state to look at. New maps are released every Thursday at 8:30am EDT.

From Our Southwest Collection

At the Precipice: New Mexico's Changing Climate by Laura Paskus
Call Number: SW 363.7387409789 P282 2020
ISBN: 9780826359117
Publication Date: 2020-09-15
At the Precipice explores the question many of us have asked ourselves: What kind of world are we leaving to our children? The realities of climate change consume the media and keep us up at night worrying about the future. But in New Mexico and the larger Southwest, climate change has been silently wreaking havoc: average temperatures in the Upper Rio Grande Basin are increasing at double the global average, super fires like Las Conchas have devastated mountains, and sections of the Rio Grande are drying up. Laura Paskus has tracked the issues of climate change at both the state and federal levels. She shares the frightening truth, both in terms of what is happening in nature and what is not happening to counteract the mounting crisis. She writes, "I wonder about the coming world. Which trees will grow, which birds will have survived. . . . The door to that new world has opened. And there's no going back." And yet our future is not yet determined--or is it?
A great aridness : climate change and the future of the American southwest by William deBuys
Call Number: 551.6979 D289g 2011
ISBN: 9780199778928
Publication Date: 2011-12-12
With its soaring azure sky and stark landscapes, the American Southwest is one of the most hauntingly beautiful regions on earth. Yet staggering population growth, combined with the intensifying effects of climate change, is driving the oasis-based society close to the brink of a Dust-Bowl-scale catastrophe. In A Great Aridness, William deBuys paints a compelling picture of what the Southwest might look like when the heat turns up and the water runs out.
The West Without Water: what past floods, droughts, and other climatic clues tell us about tomorrow by B. Lynn Ingram; Frances Malamud-Roam
Call Number: SW 551.6978 I542w 2013
ISBN: 9780520268555
Publication Date: 2013-08-01
The West without Water documents the tumultuous climate of the American West over twenty millennia, with tales of past droughts and deluges and predictions about the impacts of future climate change on water resources. Looking at the region's current water crisis from the perspective of its climate history, the authors ask the central question of what is "normal" climate for the West, and whether the relatively benign climate of the past century will continue into the future. The West without Water merges climate and paleoclimate research from a wide variety of sources as it introduces readers to key discoveries in cracking the secrets of the region's climatic past. It demonstrates that extended droughts and catastrophic floods have plagued the West with regularity over the past two millennia and recounts the most disastrous flood in the history of California and the West, which occurred in 1861-62. The authors show that, while the West may have temporarily buffered itself from such harsh climatic swings by creating artificial environments and human landscapes, our modern civilization may be ill-prepared for the future climate changes that are predicted to beset the region. They warn that it is time to face the realities of the past and prepare for a future in which fresh water may be less reliable.
Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land: Lessons from Desert Farmers on Adapting to Climate Uncertainty by Gary Paul Nabhan; Bill McKibben (Foreword by)
Call Number: SW 631 N115 2013
ISBN: 9781603584531
Publication Date: 2013-06-14
How to harvest water and nutrients, select drought-tolerant plants, and create natural diversity Because climatic uncertainty has now become "the new normal," many farmers, gardeners and orchard-keepers in North America are desperately seeking ways to adapt their food production to become more resilient in the face of such "global weirding." This book draws upon the wisdom and technical knowledge from desert farming traditions all around the world to offer time-tried strategies for: Building greater moisture-holding capacity and nutrients in soils Protecting fields from damaging winds, drought, and floods Harvesting water from uplands to use in rain gardens and terraces filled with perennial crops Delecting fruits, nuts, succulents, and herbaceous perennials that are best suited to warmer, drier climates Gary Paul Nabhan is one of the world's experts on the agricultural traditions of arid lands. For this book he has visited indigenous and traditional farmers in the Gobi Desert, the Arabian Peninsula, the Sahara Desert, and Andalusia, as well as the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, and Painted deserts of North America, to learn firsthand their techniques and designs aimed at reducing heat and drought stress on orchards, fields, and dooryard gardens. This practical book also includes colorful "parables from the field" that exemplify how desert farmers think about increasing the carrying capacity and resilience of the lands and waters they steward. It is replete with detailed descriptions and diagrams of how to implement these desert-adapted practices in your own backyard, orchard, or farm. This unique book is useful not only for farmers and permaculturists in the arid reaches of the Southwest or other desert regions. Its techniques and prophetic vision for achieving food security in the face of climate change may well need to be implemented across most of North America over the next half-century, and are already applicable in most of the semiarid West, Great Plains, and the U.S. Southwest and adjacent regions of Mexico.
From Drought to Drought: An Archaeological Record of Life Patterns as Developed by the Gallina Indians of North Central New Mexico (A.D. 1050 to 1300) by Florence H. Ellis
Call Number: SW 978.9 E47F C.1
ISBN: 9780865341203
Publication Date: 1988-10-01
How did ancient Pueblo Indian farmers survive in the American Southwest when drought all but prevented agriculture? In 1971, archaeological research began on one of these commonly hypothesized but least actually known survival strategies. The area: Northern New Mexico; the people: one of the least studied, those of the Gallina culture; the time: the 1200s when extended drought drove people south out of Mesa Verde, Chaco and the Four Corners area (southwestern corner of Colorado, southeastern corner of Utah, northeastern corner of Arizona, and northwestern corner of New Mexico) in general toward areas of rivers or mountains in the hope of more rain. The Gallina people established some of the highest camps known in the American Southwest where they spent the summer hunting, gathering, and possibly growing some corn or beans, returning home in the fall hopefully heavily laden with dry "jerky" meat, dried berries and medicinal plants. In the spring they would come back bearing camping equipment including pottery for cooking, eating and carrying water. They carefully hid these items probably intending to reuse them next year. But finally they ceased to return. The pottery and camp sites waited quietly, unfound for centuries to be discovered and excavated by Dr. Ellis's first excavation crew. * * * * * Florence Hawley Ellis, PhD, was one of the pioneer anthropologists of the American Southwest where she taught and published on her extensive excavations and related research in ethnology and such associated fields as tree-ring dating and pottery analysis. Her excavations include areas in Chaco Canyon, along the Chama, Rio Grande and Jemez river valleys and elsewhere in the Southwest. She published over 200 articles and monographs. She was trained at the University of Arizona and University of Chicago, and is also the author of "San Gabriel del Yungue" from Sunstone Press.