New Mexico Water And The Environment In 2050

The land, water, and air that make New Mexico a Land of Enchantment are facing increasing threats due to drought, climate change, and declining environmental quality protections. In this E-short edition from New Mexico 2050, noted environmental journalist Laura Paskus and Adrian Oglesby, a water law and water management expert, demonstrate how, in the face of such challenges, citizens can preserve and enrich New Mexico’s natural resources.

Here some of the state's most noted and qualified policy experts answer two vital questions: New Mexico 2050--What can we be? What will we be? They have produced in this volume, edited by former US Senator Fred Harris, a dynamic blueprint for New Mexico's future--a manual for leaders and public officials, a text for students, a sourcebook for teachers and researchers, and a guide for citizens who want the Land of Enchantment to also become the Land of Opportunity for all. Contributors include economists Lee Reynis and Jim Peach, education policy expert Veronica García, health and health care specialist Nandini Pillai Kuehn, political scientists Gabriel Sánchez and Shannon Sánchez-Youngman, Native American scholar Veronica Tiller, icon of New Mexico cultural affairs and the arts V. B. Price, authorities on water and the environment Laura Paskus and Adrian Oglesby, planning specialist Aaron Sussman, and inaugural Albuquerque poet laureate Hakim Bellamy. Digital versions of individual chapters allow interested readers to explore the key issues impacting the state of New Mexico.

The border region lies 100 kilometers/60 miles on each side of the U.S.-Mexican border and encompasses parts of four states in the United States and the six Mexican states of Baja California. Approximately 12 million people live in the U.S. counties and Mexican municipalities on the border. The high density of people and increased industrialization since the passage of NAFTA has placed an even greater burden on the inadequate infrastructure and environnmental resources of the region. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that many U.S. counties along the border are categorized as "economically distressed." and few communities possess the resources needed to address environmental concerns. This volume examines many of the environmental issues that pertain to this rapid urbanization in this region.

extreme weather will mean ongoing challenges to the capacity of these sectors to support human well-being, grow the economy, and provide critical environmental services. Society has yet to evaluate the resilience of FEWS to climate, environmental, and management stresses as it shapes strategies to support sustainable development over the next decades. These issues constitute a quintessential interdisciplinary research challenge and require a well-structured science agenda and supportive information services for implementing key findings that governments and stakeholders can adopt. Integrated policy pathways require usable research findings, applications, models, real-time information systems, and decision support systems. In addition, stakeholder engagement is essential to communicate the benefits and results of these approaches and to engage appropriate groups in their implementation.

This book addresses water management issues in the State of New Mexico. It focuses on our current understanding of the natural world, capabilities in numerical modeling, existing and evolving regulatory frameworks, and specific issues such as water quality, endangered species and the evolution of new water management institutions. Similar to its neighboring states, New Mexico regularly experiences cycles of drought. It is also experiencing rapid economic growth while at the same time is experiencing a fundamental climate shift. These factors place severe demands on its scarce water resources. In addition to historical uses by the native inhabitants of the region and the agricultural sector, new competitive uses have emerged which will require reallocation. This effort is complicated by unadjudicated water rights, the need to balance the ever-increasing needs of growing urban and rural populations, and the requirements of the ecosystem and traditional users. It is clear that New Mexico, as with other semi-arid states and regions, must find efficient ways to reallocate water among various beneficial uses. This book discusses how a proper coordination of scientific understanding, modeling advancements, and new and emerging institutional structures can help in achieving improved strategies for water policy and management. To do so, it calls upon the expertise of academics from multiple disciplines, as well as officials from federal and state agencies, to describe in understandable terms the issues currently being faced and how they can be addressed via an iterative strategy of adaptive management.

This report contains essays by more than 50 experts in environmental and water resource issues who describe their visions of the field in 2050 and the steps necessary to make those visions a reality.