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Modeling the Forgotten River Segment of the Rio Grande/Bravo Basin

by Rebecca Lynn Teasley, B. S., M.S.E and Daene C. McKinney, PhD

ABSTRACT

The segment of the Rio Grande/Bravo that extends from El Paso to Presidio along the Texas-Mexico border is often referred to as the Forgotten River. This segment has been named the Forgotten River because there is little population in the region, little scientific information about the area and often there is little to no flow in the river. However, this region is an important transboundary resource for Mexico and the United States. To aid decision makers in flow restoration projects, a simulation model for the region was created in HEC-ResSim using hydrologic information about the region which was collected and stored in an Arc Hydro geodatabase. A set of tools were developed to transfer time series data quickly and efficiently from the Arc Hydro geodatabase to the simulation model. The HEC-ResSim model proved to be a good first approximation model for propagating streamflow hydrographs downstream with a set of diversions and returns; however the daily time step was not large enough to effectively handle the monthly time step of the input data. In addition to the simulation model, a hydrologic analysis was completed for the Forgotten River reach. The hydrologic analysis indicated that the streamflow characteristics have changed from the period of 1925-1945 compared to 1984-2004. The Forgotten River reach appears to have fewer and smaller magnitude floods and is flowing at lower levels recently than it was in the earlier period. The cause of these changes is unknown and further research is recommended.

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