A Decision Support System to Improve Water Resources Management in the Conchos Basin

Abstract

The Conchos basin is the largest tributary to the lower part of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo basin. During recent years a severe drought has affected México's ability to deliver water from the Conchos basin as required by the 1944 Treaty. In addition, it has generated not only economic problems in the USA and México but also political frictions between these two countries. The Mexican Conchos river has historically contributed with the highest amount of water to USA as established on the water treaty. A Decision Support System (DSS) was developed for the Conchos basin in order to gain a better understanding of the water resources management process in the basin, and to identify the alternatives to improve the cited process. The DSS is a semi-distributed model, based on System Dynamics, and developed using Powersim software. The DSS has been used to evaluate 25 long and short tem water resources allocation alternatives for the two main basin's users: Irrigation Districts and Water Treaty. Some of the most important factors being tested on the 25 water management alternatives include National Commission of Water's yearly water allocation policy, reservoir operation rules, improvement on water distribution efficiencies, etc. The DSS model shows that the historic water resources allocation implemented by the Federal government produces adequate results as compared with the other tested water management alternatives. However, for short term drought scenarios, it is showed that there could be other management alternatives that could perform better than the current water management allocation. In general, J. R. Gastélum (B) HydroSystems, Inc., 9831 S 51st St Suite E-122, and Riparian Areas (SAHRA), Tucson, AZ, USA 1520 J.R. Gastélum et al.the DSS shows what we already expect of dynamic models of systems to provide that understanding the effects of multiple interacting variables in necessary to develop good natural resource management policies.

A study on the role and importance of irrigation management in integrated river basin management

“…Gastélum et al (2009) analyzed the problems of the Mexican Rio Conchos Basin, the largest tributary to the lower part of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Basin. They developed a decision support system (DSS) as a semi-distributed model, based on System Dynamics, to evaluate several allocation alternatives for the main basin's users: Irrigation District and Water Treaty.…”

Trans-boundary River Basin Management: Factors Influencing the Success or Failure of International Agreements

“…For instance, the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo basin, forming more than half of the border between México and the USA, is under the international 1944 USA-Mexico Water Treaty. Due to continued diminished flows and drought in the 1990s, dispute between the USA and Mexico over three shared rivers increased and stimulated them to renegotiate the treaty (Gastélum et al 2009). Trans-boundary river basins not governed by resilient water treaties or adaptive resource governance and experiencing flow variability may be more vulnerable to conflict (De Stefano et al 2012).…”

Sustainable Agreements on Stochastic River Flow

“…This increase in efficiency can be obstructed by the stochastic nature of river flow, because countries may find it profitable to break the agreement in case of drought (Ward, 2013). A recent example is Mexico's failure to meet its required average water deliveries under the 1944 US-Mexico Water Treaty in the years 1992-1997 (Gastélum et al, 2009). Additional case study evidence on agreement breakdowns because of droughts can be found, for instance, in Barrett (1994) and Beach et al (2000).…”