Water-level data for the Albuquerque Basin and adjacent areas, central New Mexico, period of record through September 30, 2012

Abstract

The Albuquerque Basin, located in central New Mexico, is about 100 miles long and 25-40 miles wide. The basin is defined as the extent of consolidated and unconsolidated deposits of Tertiary and Quaternary age that encompasses the structural Rio Grande Rift within the basin. Drinking-water supplies throughout the basin were obtained solely from groundwater resources until December 2008, when surface water from the Rio Grande began being treated and integrated into the system. A population increase of about 20 percent in the basin from 1990 to 2000 and a 22 percent increase from 2000 to 2010 resulted in an increased demand for water. An initial network of wells was established by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the City of Albuquerque from April 1982 through September 1983 to monitor changes in groundwater levels throughout the basin. This network consisted of 6 wells with analog-to-digital recorders and 27 wells where water levels were measured monthly in 1983. Currently (2012), the network consists of 126 wells and piezometers. (A piezometer is a specialized well open to a specific depth in the aquifer, often of small diameter and nested with other piezometers open to different depths.) The USGS, in cooperation with the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (ABCWUA), currently (2012) measures and reports water levels from the 126 wells and piezometers in the network; this report presents water-level data collected by USGS personnel at those 126 sites through water year 2012. Figure 1. Location of the study area and selected monitoring wells and piezometers in and near the Albuquerque Basin, central New Mexico.

Estimated 2012 groundwater potentiometric surface and drawdown from predevelopment to 2012 in the Santa Fe Group aquifer system in the Albuquerque metropolitan area, central New Mexico

“…Continuous water-level-altitude data were collected by using pressure transducers at piezometer nests as part of the Albuquerque Basin monitoring network (Beman, 2013). Continuous water-level-altitude data for the period of record through 2012 (Beman, 2013) were used to evaluate trends in water-level altitudes. The data were collected hourly by using pressure transducers and dataloggers following USGS guidelines described in Freeman and others (2004;Joseph Beman, oral commun., 2010).…”

“…The potentiometric-head difference between the shallow aquifer and the production zone was then linearly interpolated along the length of the river at 1-mi intervals. Potentiometric heads in the shallow aquifer were 6 ft to more than 25 ft higher than potentiometric heads in the production zone (Beman, 2013). Presuming that the river and the shallow aquifer are hydraulically connected and that the altitude of the riverbed is representative of the potentiometric head in the shallow aquifer, an estimated water-level altitude in the production zone was calculated as the difference between the riverbed altitude and the production-zone potentiometric head along the river.…”

Simulated and measured water levels and estimated water-level changes in the Albuquerque area, central New Mexico, 1950-2012

“…Measured water-level data used to create the hydrographs analyzed for this report (fig. 5) were collected by using methods described by Beman (2013). Production-zone piezometers selected for analysis were identified as locations with continuous water-level records in areas that provide good spatial distribution across the study area and that were developed in geologic units representative of the Santa Fe Group aquifer system in the Albuquerque area (figs.…”