Watershed Restoration Is Key

Watershed restoration and management are critical for a sustainable water future

Watersheds Under Pressure

In recent years, watersheds in New Mexico and other Western states have been put in something of a spotlight. These land areas, which drain rain and snowmelt towards a given stream, river, or evaporative basin, have significant impacts on the quantity and quality of water available to ecosystems and human communities. Cumulative issues in historical watershed management, combined with changing climate and land use are increasingly impairing the function of our watersheds, resulting in fires, floods, erosion, and empty streambeds. Watershed restoration that supports healthy forests, wetlands, and streams presents an opportunity to slow and reverse negative trends, creating benefits that literally flow downstream.

What Is a Watershed?

A watershed is a catchment or drainage basin; an area of land that drains water towards a defining point, often on a river or stream, but sometimes in a lake or evaporative basin. Because most river systems have branched tributaries, watersheds are usually nested, with many small watersheds contained within larger ones. For example, the Santa Fe River Watershed is adjacent to the Tesque Creek Watershed, and both are part of the larger watershed of the Rio Grande. At the highest elevations in these basins lay streams’ headwaters, where cooler temperatures and higher precipitation rates create conditions where water is more plentiful. That extra water is often the primary source of streamflow for drier areas downstream, but the journey from headwater basin to large river or reservoir is a long one, and the ecosystems along the way play critical and complex roles in preserving the amount, quality, and timing of streamflow available to downstream users.

Natural Defenses Against Erosion and Flood

Watersheds provided incredibly valuable services to human communities. Perhaps most famous among these services are mitigating floods and reducing erosion. The roots of healthy forests, meadows, and wetlands stabilize soil, holding it in place and allowing it to absorb water during heavy rainfall. Extreme wildfires can completely destroy those ecosystems, allowing rapid  runoff to erode soils and sweep tons of sediment, ash, and other pollutants downstream. Within just the past few years, post-fire flooding has taken multiple lives, critically impaired clean water supplies, and caused hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in damage in New Mexico towns like Las Vegas and Ruidoso. 

Fire, Erosion, and the Rising Toll of Watershed Damage

While wildfires provide a dramatic example, more gradual degradation to watersheds’ ecosystems and land surfaces can exacerbate the frequency and scale of flooding and sediment damage. Overgrazing, the spread of invasive plant species, and aridifying climate conditions damage the riparian ecosystems around streams and arroyos. Like fires, that gradual damage destabilizes soils. The resulting erosion acts like a runaway train, causing incision of the stream bed, more drying, and more erosion. In June 2024, heavy rains pummelled the northern slopes of the Jemez mountains, where numerous small watersheds have struggled with unstable and eroding streambanks for decades. Floodwaters swept down the Arroyo la Madera dumping over 2 million cubic feet of sediment into the Rio Chama, obliterating the river channel and damaging homes, pastures, and irrigation infrastructure. While similar events are not unheard of in the region, local ranchers, farmers, and water managers alike have expressed concern that they may become more common under climate change, unless substantial efforts are made to stabilize watersheds and improve their resilience. 

A Dry River in Albuquerque: The Cost of Lost Storage

This summer in Albuquerque, our watershed woes are manifesting not in floods, but in an empty riverbed. The reasons for this are plentiful and complex, but warming temperatures and the loss of functional water storage rank high among them. In watersheds like the Rio Grande, where most of the water in rivers comes from brief seasonal inputs of snowmelt or monsoon rains, the capacity to store water for later is especially important. While humans store some runoff in reservoirs like Elephant Butte, El Vado, and Abiquiu, we also rely on snowpacks, wetlands, and shallow groundwater to buffer seasonal and multi-years swings in water availability. Unfortunately, each of these water-storing watershed components face severe declines under climate change.

Wetlands and Riparian Zones: Nature’s Water Banks

Wetlands in particular have faced widespread decline in the state and across the Southwest. These sponge-like ecosystems slow runoff, and store it in saturated soils, ponds, and shallow groundwater. That stored water then feeds streams and springs during drying periods, maintaining higher baseflows with better water quality. In New Mexico, the degradation of wetlands and riparian ecosystems (meaning those occurring near and dependant on rivers and streams), have been largely caused by erosion, restricted river flows, overgrazing, climate change, and other human-driven factors, negatively impact the quantity and quality of water across much of the state, especially during dry years. 

 

Restoration Works—But Faces Major Hurdles

Water experts increasingly call for watershed restoration as we work towards a sustainable water future, but the work remains embattled, fragmented, and relatively small-scale. Numerous case studies demonstrate that well-planned thinning and managed burns can improve watershed conditions in New Mexico, preserving the hydrological function of soils and ecosystems while reducing dense vegetation that fosters extreme fires. Additionally, the 2025 updates to the Forest and Watershed Restoration Act signals bipartisan support for restoration near towns and residential areas. However, planning, managing, and implementing forest and watershed management strategies at the necessary landscape scapes remains extremely challenging and expensive. The acreages in need of treatment are immense, and working with reasonably skeptical communities is a slow process. 

Other areas of watershed restoration face similar challenges. Wetland restoration projects, including beaver reintroduction and mimicry, are proving effective at raising water tables and reducing erosion, generating excitement in the few locations where long-term work has been feasible. But these wins remain isolated, and widespread implementation is barred by limited resources and capacity, logistical issues, and the slow pace of gaining community buy-in.

The Path Forward: Investment, Coordination, and Local Action

Landscape scale watershed restoration promises substantial benefits and improved water system resilience as we face a hotter, more arid future. Realistically, achieving this would require a landmark investment of resources at federal, state, and local levels. Following a year of massive cuts to Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and other relevant federal agencies, this seems challenging, but important work and promising opportunities remain at state and local levels. Outreach and communication with communities is the first step to gaining support for watershed restoration projects, often resulting in better planning and outcomes. Additionally, breaking down the historically siloed areas of watershed work and improving coordination across scales will be necessary.

Join the Water Advocates’ for our August Workshop on Protecting New Mexico Watersheds to learn more about protecting and restoring healthy, functioning watersheds across the state, and in doing so, support the rivers and ecosystems on which our communities depend.