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Q3 2025 Highlights

Community Engagement - Conservation Readiness Assessment

The Conservation Readiness Assessment team is working to identify stressors to the agricultural water systems in the three river basins (Rio Grande, Truckee-Carson, Snake) and thus who or what is most vulnerable to the impacts of water scarcity. The team is drafting a scientific journal article that will present examples of potential solutions that have been adopted or considered in each of these basins, as well as those applied successfully in other locations that could help inform water management decisions in the project area.

Planning is also underway to engage stakeholders in the first of four conservation readiness workshops in early 2026.

Education - Water Manager Certification Program

The Water Manager Certification Program team made progress in defining the topics for the inaugural short 2026 summer course for Water Managers. Key topics under consideration include water rights, engineering principles for water management, water measurement in open channels and pipelines, irrigation management, and integrated water resources planning. These topics are being evaluated to offer a balanced combination of theoretical foundations and applied knowledge for practitioners. The team has also been meeting to review the proposal for the creation of the Water Manager Certification (WMC) Program. These meetings provided an opportunity to align objectives, clarify responsibilities, and establish timelines for developing program components.

Education - Water Technician Training

The Water Technician Training team developed a short course training to be offered August 2025. However, this was postponed to March 18-20, 2026. The course will cover soil-water relationships, evapotranspiration estimation, crop water requirements, and irrigation scheduling using climate data. Participants will gain hands-on experience installing and maintaining weather stations, measuring soil moisture, and infiltration in the field. For the irrigation schedule and planning, participants will use the CROPWAT software (developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations).

Extension Animation and Videos

In collaboration with ACES/New Mexico Extension web and graphic design personnel, the Extension Animations and Videos team created a website, logos, and branding package for the RAWCS project. A Student Assistant working with the team gained experience by creating branded presentation templates and Zoom backgrounds for project member use. The team also established a social media presence for the Western Water Network, and a plan to populate the account with information and news from the RAWCS project and the larger Western Water Network.

Research - Agricultural Systems

The Agricultural Systems team completed their first year of data collection in the ongoing research collaboration with a local pecan farmer to evaluate pistachio as an alternative orchard crop to pecan in the Mesilla Valley. The team is gathering data on the consumptive water use of a young, drip-irrigated pistachio orchard by measuring above-canopy heat and carbon flux, soil evaporation losses below the tree canopy, and near-soil surface soil moisture of the pistachio field combined with weather data. If data indicates that pistachios can be grown successfully in the Mesilla Valley with less water than pecans, it could allow producers to maintain economic viability while conserving water.

Research - Data-Driven Water Budgets & Community Accessible Decision Tools

The team made significant progress on the new version of the North American Land Data Assimilation System Version 3 (NLDAS-3). When completed, NLDAS-3 will generate data on snow, rain, runoff, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, groundwater storage, and other water, vegetation and energy parameters. This information is useful for calculating water budgets and understanding water availability, monitoring drought conditions, crop health, and more. The team also started co-developing tools with users including a data visualization dashboard and indices such as Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI), Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Lawn and Garden Index, Cattle Comfort Index, Growing Degree Days/ Heat and Cold Stress Days.

Research - Integrated System-Based Modeling

The Integrated System-Based Modeling team made significant progress in developing and integrating System Dynamics (SD) and economic modeling at the watershed level. Current areas of focus are the Rio Hondo Watershed in the Upper Rio Grande region of New Mexico, and the Lower Rio Grande in New Mexico. Preliminary results have been obtained from economic modeling in the Lower Rio Grande study area conducted in collaboration with the Regional Economic Modeling team. These findings will be incorporated to develop the New Mexico statewide System Dynamics model.

Research - Regional Economic Modeling

Team Lead Dr. Frank Ward this quarter published an article in the peer reviewed Journal of Hydrology (citation below). The article has contributed to the scientific literature on hydroeconomic models (HEMs) to analyze the performance of alternative water shortage sharing methods. The article conceptualized, formulated, and applied a framework that addresses costs of drought adaptation, providing insights into improving the economic performance of water management and irrigated agriculture. It addresses essential issues surrounding water shortage sharing arrangements in an arid watershed where irrigated agriculture depends on a reliable water supply. Recently a PhD student joined the team and has been gaining hands-on experience in using modeling software and working through scenarios. Idhirij, S. and Ward, F.A., 2025. Water management innovations for adapting to climate water stress: new evidence from the American Southwest. Journal of Hydrology, p.134220.

Research - Water Systems

The Water Systems team has been focusing on collecting data and developing a hydrological model for the Upper Snake River Basin. Team members successfully gathered all the necessary data, including information about the land use, soil, streamflow, and weather forcing data, which are essential for accurate modeling. Using these data, they developed a hydrological model that can simulate water movement and distribution in the large and complex Upper Snake River Basin. Automated scripts and workflows will support similar work in other river basins.

Western Water Network - Facilitated Technical Support

The Western Water Network logo and website home page with web map have been completed. The next step is to populate the pages of the website with content.

Q1-Q2 2025

Agricultural Systems

The agricultural systems team commenced an irrigation experiment with sweet sorghum, collected plant respiration, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture data at a drip-irrigated young pistachio orchard in southern New Mexico, and investigated a new pistachio study site in western New Mexico.

Conservation Readiness Assessment

The conservation readiness assessment team identified key areas of emphasis for “Conservation Readiness” workshops to engage local stakeholders in discussing realistic water scarcity solutions. Workshop planners will take into consideration which projects and practices already have a mechanism for funding when planning content.

Data-Driven Water Budgets & Community Accessible Decision Tools

The data-driven water budgets & community accessible decision tools team members are coordinating with NASA on the development of a new version of the North American Land Data Assimilation System Version 3 (NLDAS-3) which will generate data on snow, rain, snow, runoff, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, groundwater storage, and other water, vegetation, and energy parameters. This information is useful for calculating water budgets and understanding water availability, drought, crop health, and more.

Ethnographic Community Assessment

The ethnographic community assessment team has engaged with various stakeholders across southern Idaho to identify needs and opportunities and build relationships. The team lead is also working closely with other project-internal teams to ensure complementarity.

Integrated System-Based Modeling

The integrated system-based modeling team is developing a comprehensive and easy-to-understand system dynamics model. This model will combine research from other RAWCS teams with real-world information about water, agriculture, communities, and stakeholder concerns in the western United States. The goal is to help communities, farmers, and decision-makers find ways of increasing resilience to water scarcity.

Water Manager Certification Program

The Water Manager Certification Program team elaborated a proposal that describes the creation of a Water Resource Manager Certification Program at New Mexico State University (NMSU) to address the growing need for professionally trained water resource managers, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions such as the southwestern United States. The certification program will prepare working professionals, graduate students, and community stakeholders to make informed decisions about water management, planning, and sustainability.

Water Systems

Water systems team members have taken early steps toward implementing the Western Water Network by engaging in modeling and research activities to support integrating community engagement, collaborative modeling, and data-sharing practices across institutional and geographic boundaries.

Graduate students participating in the water systems modeling and review activities are gaining hands-on experience with integrated water modeling tools and research design, directly supporting workforce development in water resources management.

Water Technician Training

Team members working on the Water Technician Training have made progress in developing a 2.5-day (20-hour) short-course that will offer participants practical hands-on training and basic knowledge for climate-based irrigation management. The program covers soil-water relationships, evapotranspiration estimation, crop water requirements, and irrigation scheduling using climate data. Participants will gain hands-on experience installing and maintaining weather stations, measuring soil moisture and infiltration in the field, and using specialized software from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for irrigation planning. This course provides students and practitioners with the essential tools for managing irrigation water and improving water use efficiency in agriculture.

Western Water Network

The Western Water Network (WWN) team coordinated discussions with the WWN regarding project activities, including alignment of priorities and identification of collaborative opportunities. Members also provided constructive feedback on the development and organization of the WWN webpage to enhance accessibility and clarity, and communicated potential data sharing strategies and opportunities to strengthen integration and collaboration across the network.

Extension Animation and Videos

The extension animation and videos team has made progress on the project’s website design, content, colors, and branding. The logo for RAWCS has been completed, and a branding style guide will be created.

Facilitated Technical Support

Facilitated technical support created social media accounts for Western Water Network to enhance stakeholder communication.