Water Scarcity in The Rio Grande Basin

Throughout the nearly 1900 mile journey the Rio Grande 75 percent of the water that runs through is allocated JUST for agriculture (Halladay). While providing massive amounts of water for agriculture, the river also has to support 12-13 million people for their daily water use. While at the moment the river is struggling to keep up with the demands from population, adding around a half a million over the last 10 years. With this continuous population increase it is expected that the Rio Grandes water usage will be more than doubled than what it is now by 2050 (Halladay).

Climate change is a large factor in the water scarcity problem within the Rio Grande. The Rio Grande depends on snowpack in the Colorado to provide the flow of water (Samimi et al.). There is rising temperatures in the states the Rio Grande flows through, this causes a decrease in snowpack development, in turn causing stream flow for the Rio Grande to decrease. Climate change has also caused an increase in the growing seasons specifically in the Western US adding 2.2 days to the season every decade (EPA). This will lengthen the time plants need to be irrigated, which is already the main source of use for the Rio Grande. There is also an increase of drought, the map to the right shows areas of low-high chances of drought probability.

One of the main ways to try and aid the Rio Grande scarcity issue is to regulate the water supply with reservoirs. These reservoirs will be used to hold water until the Rio Grande is struggling to flow, almost to a drying point, and releasing the water into the river then. Timing the release has to be right because of the overuse the river is already facing (Robbins 2022). As a society we also need to be more cognizant on what we eat, with beef being one of the largest uses of water in rivers like the Colorado and Rio Grande (Rellihan 2023).

The Rio Grande is the second longest river in the US, providing water to millions of people, and irrigating thousands of acres of farmland. But climate change and the growing population throughout the Rio Grande and its dependents are causing a water scarcity problem. If this problem is not taken seriously, there will be harsh ramifications for the populations within the basin. Using reservoirs to help feed into the Rio Grande during the dry seasons is a short-term solution, long term we as a society need to be more efficient with the water that we use.