Groundwater Well Data from the Middle Rio Grande Valley Riparian Zone, New Mexico (1999-2014)

This study originated with the objective of parameterizing riparian evapotranspiration (ET) in the water budget of the middle Rio Grande of New Mexico. We hypothesized that flooding and invasions of non-native species would impact the ecosystem's use of water. Our objectives were to measure and compare the ET of native (Rio Grande cottonwood, Populus deltoides ssp. wizleni) and non-native (saltcedar, Tamarix chinensis, Russian olive, Eleagnus angustifolia) bosque (woodland) communities and to evaluate how water use is affected by climatic variability resulting in high river flows and flooding as well as drought conditions and deep water tables. This data set contains water table levels monitored at nine sites along the Rio Grande riparian corridor between Albuquerque and Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. Data date to 1999. Two sites remain active and are well into their second decade of monitoring. One is in a xero-riparian, non-flooding, saltcedar woodland within the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge. The other is in a dense, monotypic saltcedar thicket at the Bosque del Apache NWR that is subject to flood pulses associated with high river flows.