Theme Guide for EBTAG Matrix - March 2005

THEME ONE: BASIC WATER DATA

1. Surface Water Data
2. Ground Water Data
3. Recharge Data
4. Data Representation

1. Data Needs and Tools to Complete Objectives Below
2. Water Quality Objectives

1. Data Acquisition and Characterization of Hydrostratigraphy and Aquifer Heterogeneity
2. Data Acquisition and Characterization of the Influence of Structure on Ground Water Flow
3. Geophysics and Remote-Sensing Data Acquisition and Analysis
4. Integrated Analyses

1. Data Needs
2. Analyzing Geological Controls on Ground-Water/Surface-Water Interaction
3. Water-Balance Analyses

1. Data Integration
2. Model Analysis and Hypothesis Testing

I. Surface Water Data

1. Data collection campaign to establish an existing stream-gage measurement uncertainty and sources of uncertainty.
2. Establish more stream gages as are logistically possible following assessment of priorities for new data (e.g. data gaps, areas where diversions and pumping may affect discharge, etc.).
3. Conduct streamflow measurements on appropriate streams and on irrigation diversions/return flows. These data are needed to quantify surface-water flows, gains, and losses.
4. Measure discharge and water chemistry at significant springs.
5. Collect water chemistry-water quality data for surface water.

6. Collect new water level measurements in existing wells.
7. Determine the locations and production rates of existing municipal, county, and private wells.
8. Establish an expanded ground-water observation-well network, including piezometers sited to support knowledge of the hydrological system, for repeated measurements. Priority wells should be located in vicinity of faults or pumping centers. Water chemistry should be collected from these wells.
9. Site new monitoring wells and evaluate adequacy of existing monitoring network to evaluate water quality and support contaminant transport modeling.

10. Precipitation and evapotranspiration data, where still needed, across the region, particularly in higher-elevation drainage basins.
11. Collection of infiltration data: particularly within bedrock at mountain front and within surficial alluvium.

12. Establish a centralized, multi-user computer database of basic surface-water and ground-water information (including water chemistry) of the EBTAG region. Update hydrologic and water quality database for the region on a yearly basis for the purpose of identifying relevant trends in water supply and possible declines in surface and ground-water quality.
13. Construct updated hydraulic-head and water-level decline maps.
14. Build a suite of up-to-data GIS data layers for interpretive work and data display.

I. Data Needs and Tools to Complete Objectives Below

1. Compile existing and historical water quality data. Determine gaps in existing Jemez Y Sangre 2000 database for pre-2000 data (including NMED GWB, NME SWB, NEMD STB, City of Espaņola, County). Update databases with 2000-preset data (including LANL, EPA-STORET, NMED DWB, City). Explore availability of data from BIA and Pueblos.
2. Compile bibliography of existing an historical water quality reports and other sources of water quality reports and other sources of water quality data.
3. Conduct a comprehensive geochemical assessment of produced an natural waters to include major soluble ions, isotopes, effective tracers, natural and anthropogenic threats to water quality and ground-water age determination.
4. Collect new geochemical data including isotopic and water-age analyses.
5. Analyze water quality and aquifer mineralogy.

6. Predict changes in ground water chemistry, particularly along Rio Grande, that may occur with continued and/or increased pumping and provide probabilistic analysis of future water quality.
7. Examine the controls on deep upflow at the Rio Grande, and the role of deep upflow on water quality.
8. Determine probabilistic flow paths and travel times for contaminants at LANL, and use the results to evaluate adequacy of existing monitoring network and to potentially site new monitoring wells.
9. Quantify recharge, characterize flow paths and water rock interaction and determine age of ground water in the basin.
10. Determine possible influence of faults on ground-water flow, including the chemistry of fault rocks.
11. Determine sources of natural and anthropogenic constituents.
12. Calibrate coupled flow/transport model to historical trends in ground water chemistry using existing and new geochemical data.

I. Data Acquisition and Characterization of Hydrostratigraphy and Aquifer Characteristics

1. Develop a hydrostratigraphic framework of the Santa Fe Group through mapping and surface and subsurface stratigraphic analyses. This framework will include the spatially variable thickness of the Santa Fe Group aquifer, extent continuity and interconnectedness of high conductivity facies.
2. Quantify hydrogeological contrasts and connections between saturated Ancha, Tesuque, Espinaso, and Galisteo Formations in the Santa Fe embayment.
3. Determine hydrologic significance of volcanic rocks including distribution of volcanic aquifers and nature of fracture flow in these aquifers.
4. Determine relationship between geologic and hydrologic properties by acquisition of porosity/permeability data for all hydrostratigraphic units.
5. Acquire paired core hole and well data for hydrologic tests and geophysical logs to determine correlation of rock types to geophysical responses and hydrological properties.
6. Develop paleogeographic reconstructions to aid understanding of present-day distribution of rock types and structures.

7. Use geologic mapping and seismic-reflection data to define dip domains within the basin: Evaluate anisotropy of dipping beds.
8. Locate faults based on new mapping and geophysical data.
9. Conduct field studies to characterize faults in different rock types, characterize hydrological characteristics of damage zones, determine extent of cementation, etc.
10. Locate potential faults that influence ground-water flow utilizing existing water-level and pump-test data. These studies would include faults within the basin and near or within the mountain block to the east.
11. Design aquifer test with observation wells near a well-characterized fault. Dedicate piezometer nest near one or more faults to monitor basin0scale and well-field scale affects of faults on temporally varying head distribution.
12. Evaluate fault hydrualic properties via water chemistry differences.

13. Acquire additional airborne time-domain electromagnetic surveys to tie existing survey together and obtain complete coverage of basin: Integrate with ground TEM data.
14. Reinterpret magnetotelluric data to extract shallow hydrogeologic data and to map water-table beneath volcanic rocks (e.g. Cerros del Rio).
15. Acquire denser network of ground-based gravity data.
16. Use time-lapse micro-gravity measurements to determine effect of drought on water levels, changes in aquifer storage, inflow/outflows.
17. Reinterpret existing and acquire new high-resolution seismic data, especially on the east side of the basin.
18. Investigate and monitor potential aquifer compaction and land-surface subsidence in response to ground water pumping (geodetic network and InSAR).
19. Develop mechanisms to run recommended suite of borehole geophysics logs in priority holes.
20. Reopen Yates La Mesa #2 well and update geophysical evaluation and interpretation of the Tesuque aquifer and deeper horizons.

21. Develop procedures to better integrate geological and hydrological data to evaluate geological controls on the ground water flow system. Include examination of relationships of drawdown to aquifer properties and faults.
22. Integrate ground-water chemistry (including ground water-age data) with geological and hydrological data to model flow paths, recharge and affects of hydrostratigraphic heterogeneity and faults on ground-water flow.
23. Integrate new geologic and geophysical investigations regarding the presence of faults, dipping strata and changes of porosity and permeability in the basin formations: analyze existing pump test results to assess importance of dipping beds, horizontal anisotropy and model parameters.
24. Use information and conceptualizations of anisotropy and heterogeneity to conduct probabilistic analyses of changes in hydraulic gradients and water-levels that will occur due to continued and/or increased ground-water withdrawal.
25. Integrate geological geochemical geophysical and hydrological data to model water budget and quantify ground-water/surface-water exchange and mountain front recharge.

I. Data Needs

1. Precipitation and evapotranspiration data across the region.
2. Measure water levels in alluvium associated with streams and in adjacent regional aquifer system.
3. Fill in gaps of streamflow measurement, including irrigation diversions and returns, based on analysis of existing data and the current measurement network. Conduct a single season of streamflow measurements on streams in the Santa Fe River, Rio Pojoaque and Rio Santa Cruz drainage basins to quantify a snapshot in time of surface-water flow gains, and losses.
4. Measure discharge and conduct chemical analyses of water from significant springs.
5. Collect water-chemistry data to help identify recharge zones and flow paths between surface and ground water.
6. Maintain up-to-date database of ground-water pumping.
7. Update hydrologic and water=quality databases on a yearly basis for the purpose of identifying relevant trends in water supply and possible declines in surface and ground-water quality.

8. Update interpretation of the geologic framework and its influence on ground-water flow. Integrate new geologic and geophysical investigations regarding the presence of faults, dipping strata and changes of porosity and permeability in the basin-fill strata.
9. Integrate surface-water models with ground-water models.
10. Estimate propagation of pumping effects from ground-water pumping centers particularly where it may influence other wells and surface0water flow. Estimate effects of pumping on surface-water flow.
11. Use new data and models to determine the impact of anisotropy caused by dipping beds, facies,(conductivity changes, and structural discontinuities in the Santa Fe Group to determine stream loss/gain, water levels in shallow aquifers, and ground-water flow paths.

12. Utilize comprehensive ground-water and surface water models of the Española Basin to better understand ground-water flows between sub-basins , the interconnection of ground water and surface water and an overall water budget for the basin.
13. Conduct studies to better quantify:
1. water budget components stemming from ground-water and surface-water exchange;
2. surface-water inflow to sub-basins;
3. irrigated acreages and the surface-water diversions associated with them; and
4. mountain-front recharge.
14. Use population-growth estimates to refine the estimation of future ground-water diversions by pumping in sub-basins.

I. Data Integration

1. Maintain and update a suite of up-to-data geographic information system (GIS) data layers for interpretive work and data display. Make available for data exchange for different purposes.
2. Identify and/or develop software tools that allow multiple conceptual models of hydrostratigraphy to be easily integrated into ground-water flow and transport models.
3. Assess existing flow models and conduct model revisions taking into account new data and improved modeling capabilities, including GIS. Experiment with new calibration and parameter estimation techniques to reduce model uncertainties in predicting impact.
4. Collect, compile, and evaluate porosity and permeability( transmissivity and storage properties) of hydrogeologic units, including evaluation of compatibility of data collected with different methods and at different spatial scales.
5. Develop end0user interfaces for froun0water models developed by LANL, USGS, OSE or other public agencies.
6. Integrate surface-water and ground-water models.

7. Use sensitivity analysis to determine what type of data, collected where and by what methods are most significant to the outcomes of hydrogeological modeling. Using this process, identify critical areas where additional surface and subsurface data are needed.
8. Develop Española Basin specific hypotheses testable by existing models and their variants. Evaluate them in terms of 3d geohydrology. Analyze the uncertainty using probabilities as well as deterministic models.
9. Examine the effects of geologic heterogeneities on ground-water flow and ground-water surface-water interaction. Analyses using geologic information and stream gain/loss information to quantity the effect of dipping and alternative beds of differing permeability in contact with stream alluvium. Evaluate what geological parameters most strongly affect the ground water flow system and learn how to model them using predictive numerical flow models.
10. Determine where and which fault properties impact ground-water flow and chemistry. Analyze and interpret model results and hypotheses test results to define and refine most important parameters of fault related fluid flow in the aquifer system. Depending on ground-water flow directions, differences in geochemistry and age of water on either side of faults may be used to help identify barriers to flow. Conversely difference in geochemistry may indicate the presence of barrier not previously identified.