Happy New Water Year!
Whiplash.
Archive of posts filed under the water category.
Dry Gulch Pass
I took advantage of the break between Storm 2 and Storm 3 to wander the South Valley this morning. It was a great ride – lots of ditch banks, some weird urbanity (the Walmart parking lot where Frank Hubbell’s farm used to be, read our book to learn about the failed tobacco farming empire of …
Making sense of the crazy outlier year of 2026
Updating my “drought and climate change” lecture each fall is a useful exercise – this year more useful than most. Much like the year itself, my slide deck is setting all time records for new data visualizations needed to make sense of the remarkable 2026. Update Great questions from the comments. (I love my commenters.) …
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A river returns
My office mate and podcast hosting buddy Rin Tara had the good sense to pull out their phone and record some stuff while we were out at the Rio Grande Thursday, beneath the I40 bridge, waiting for the pulse flow to arrive. We had the good fortune to bump into Audubon’s Tucker Davidson when we …
Visualizing the 2026 Albuquerque pulse flow
Hitting “reload” and keeping track of six open browser tabs was making my head hurt – this helped. Back story here via Paul Tashjian, written as the pulse flow was getting underway: As I write, action is underfoot to combine water from the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and …
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A deep dive into the data on Lower Colorado River water use
Great new stuff from the Colorado River Wilburys – Jack Schmidt, Anne Castle, Eric Kuhn, Kathryn Sorensen, and Rin Tara*: Reductions in Lower Basin water use during the last four years, including forecast use in 2026, are similar to the initial targets for Lower Basin shortages described in the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Post-2026 …
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Chasing the water
At 2 p.m. Monday (Aug 31, 2026) the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, along with the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and Audubon Southwest, began releasing a pulse of water from Abiquiu Reservoir on the Rio Chama in Northern New Mexico as an experiment – what might a several day pulse of water do …
The science of tree diebacks in drought
Of possible relevance to the current bosque dieback in New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande? From PNAS: Predicting forest resilience requires knowing whether trees can physiologically acclimate to drought. Drawing on global in-situ field experiments, we find a pervasive lack of functional adjustment in forest trees. Trees maintain stable hydraulic and photosynthetic capacities, enabling maximum carbon …
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On the inevitability of change
I spent an unhappy evening yesterday staring at data, trying to make sense of the inevitability of change. I slept poorly. The Rio Grande through Albuquerque is dry, the Colorado River’s reservoirs are rapidly emptying and, unable to come to grips with this reality we have thrown up our hands and tossed the future of …
The Colorado River Compact is a dead parrot
A guest post from longtime friend of Inkstain (and friend of the Colorado River) Karl Flessa. By Karl Flessa In the classic Monty Python sketch, a customer returns to the pet shop where, just 30 minutes ago, he purchased a parrot. He complains that the parrot is dead. The shopkeeper tries to convince the customer …
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