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RiverEyes Monitoring Program

This web application was initially developed by GSA between Fall 2022 and Spring 2023. It is intended to be a platform to review, visualize, extract, and interact with all years of RiverEyes project data. To support development of this tool, reported dried extents from 2002 through the most recent monitoring year were migrated into a custom-designed relational database. Prior to the creation of this central database, it was more difficult to analyze multi-temporal trends because data were stored in multiple spreadsheets, often with inconsistent structures.

Data and Resources

Information

Field Value
Contact Name Chad McKenna
Contact Email [email protected]
Data Collection Procedures The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maintains a network of streamflow monitoring stations throughout the MRG that publish real-time, provisional streamflow to the internet (e.g., https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nm/nwis/current/?type=flow). Per the contractual agreement with Reclamation, field reconnaissance within specific high-risk segments of the MRG was conducted when streamflow was below 300 cubic feet per second (cfs) at USGS 08354900 Rio Grande Floodway at San Acacia, New Mexico (NM); below 80 cfs at USGS 08331160 Rio Grande Near Bosque Farms, NM; or below 100 cfs at USGS 08330000 Rio Grande at Albuquerque, NM While RiverEyes encompasses potential monitoring that may occur anywhere between Cochiti Dam and Elephant Butte Reservoir, channel drying episodes have historically concentrated in two MRG reaches – the Isleta and San Acacia. RiverEyes crews also monitored through the Angostura Reach periodically during 2020, 2021, and 2022, whenever flows at the Albuquerque gage fell below 100 cfs but the Angostura Reach only experienced drying in 2022.
Data Collection Frequency As Needed
Data Publishing Method Webmap, Websites, tabular data
Data Quality Procedures RiverEyes reports the extent of drying according to the nearest river mile (RM). RMs are segmented from Reclamation’s digitized channel centerline and Reclamation typically produces and circulates a new centerline every 10 years. Since channel morphology changes over time, so do the relative RM locations. We believe that most RiverEyes data are reported according to either the 2002 or 2012 RMs, however, the specific year that the RiverEyes project transitioned from the 2002 to 2012 RMs is not inherently clear. It is also important to note that the precision that the extent of drying was reported has increased over time, as has GPS accuracy. It is also not entirely clear how lat/long or UTM coordinate-based observations were transcribed into RMs during some of the earlier monitoring years. Regardless, all data distributed within this platform are reported according to 2012 RMs, and based on a nearest neighbor analysis, the 2002 and 2012 RMs are typically within +/- 0.2 RMs of each other, particularly within the channel segments traditionally affected by drying. The extent of drying often changes throughout the day, depending on a variety of factors which include evapotranspiration, inflow fluctuations, interactions with groundwater, irrigation diversions and returns, and the distribution of sometimes small but significant in-channel features like scour holes, channel constrictions, and sediment deposition zones. During some years, dried extent was mapped multiple times during the same day. When this occurred, we only ingested the earlies daily observation record, since early morning monitoring has become more customary.
Geographic Location Middle Rio Grande
Data Source SS Papadopulos, SWCA, AJAC Enterprises (AJAC), and GeoSystems Analysis, Inc (GSA)
Last Updated 01 December 2023
Published 17 November 2023