About NM Water
New Mexico’s landscapes, cultures, and economies flow with water.
Understanding how water moves, how much we have, and its limits is crucial, especially today as our state faces population growth, urban development, and increasing water scarcity exacerbated by climate warming.
The following sections highlight New Mexico’s water fundamentals,
from its path through the water cycle to our water supplies, and the challenges New Mexico faces in managing this vital resource. We’ll delve into how we use—and often overuse—water, and the historical issues that shape water governance, providing you with the context for topics discussed elsewhere on this site. We hope this knowledge underscores the need for urgent action and empowers you with understanding to ensure a sustainable water future for future generations of New Mexicans.
Water Basics
Water is a precious resource that plays a crucial role in shaping our planet and supporting all life.
It is also a finite resource, not equally available or accessible across the globe or even within regions. This is particularly true in the Southwest United States. New Mexico’s tenuous relationship with water began over a century ago, as the state focused on development. Water supplies were allocated by law to the first irrigators and miners. Water conservation as cited in state laws from that era, which are still on the books, meant building dams and reservoirs to “conserve” water from flowing downstream. Over the decades and in periods of drought, various water laws and rules have been enacted, and yet the state struggles to manage water equitably or reliably.
Today, surface water and groundwater supplies are diminishing and their potential uses are committed beyond present and future availability. New Mexico is currently mismanaging our available water supply.
Click
to expand
Sources and Uses
Surface water accounts for a little more than half of total water usage in New Mexico.
A large volume of surface water is lost to evaporation and transpiration, due especially to our arid and now warming climate that causes the state’s earlier and now longer growing seasons. The availability of surface water fluctuates significantly depending on precipitation patterns and snowpack.
Regardless of its high annual and seasonal variability, surface water in New Mexico must meet essential human needs. It irrigates agricultural fields, supports most other economic uses, is essential to wildlife, provides recreation opportunities, and directly or through groundwater recharge supplies drinking water to New Mexico communities large and small.
Clickto expand
History of Water Use
The history of water use in New Mexico is a long and complex one, deeply intertwined with the history of the land and its inhabitants. The history of water management in New Mexico is one of taking water availability for granted and not collecting data on the water we have.
Why Worry? Facing New Mexico’s Water Future
New Mexico faces water scarcity but is not yet facing up to the reality created by already reduced supplies, gross overuse of groundwater, interstate water-sharing obligations not being met, climate warming impacts, and dwindling aquifers, which are or will impact all water users.
Current water distribution laws favor those who have used the water the longest, that is, primarily agricultural users, leaving recent urban users vulnerable during shortages. That is why New Mexico does not administer by the priority date of users’ water rights, despite that being constitutional law. While stricter enforcement could address decreased supply, it would cut off or curtail those water users established later in New Mexico’s history, which are disproportionately urban, and drive 90% of the state economy.
A law passed in 2003 granted the State Engineer new authority for priority administration. The law requires the State Engineer to issue rules to ensure compliance with interstate stream compacts. The law and the rules were upheld by the NM Supreme Court in 2012. Along with the 2019 Water Data Act and 2023 Water Planning Security Act, these laws authorize solutions to enable data-driven water management and community-based planning for a sustainable water future. Communities and regions need to collaborate on plans, based on solid data, to reimagine their adaptation to a more arid climate and less water. All of these needs for improved water management in New Mexico will require financial support, new ways of thinking, and active involvement of community members, agencies, and more.
Every year without New Mexico facing the serious and substantial imbalance between water uses and water supplies takes away future choices and opportunities. It’s time to adapt for greater water supply resilience and implement solutions before disasters strike. New Mexico’s cultural and economic security is at stake.
Take a look back at Our Water Crisis to understand more of the problem and read the Solutions to advance a water security agenda for our state, one that provides New Mexico with good water management: funding, full implementation of legislation already passed, and fulfills a water resilient vision for us all.