The objective of this paper is to
discuss the dynamic modeling of water rights as part of a systems model (WaterMAPS),
which was developed by the City of Santa Fe, New Mexico as part of its long-range
water supply program.
Supply sources, including local groundwater from two separate well fields, local surface
water, and a diversion from the Rio Grande, are dynamically simulated with changing
hydrologic conditions, while accounting for water rights associated with each source. The
systems model not only estimates the hydrology dependent availability of water sources,
but also the hydrology dependence of the water accounting allocation.
The WaterMAPS model emphasizes the relationship between hydrology, different supply
sources, and water rights constraints. This enables the model to produce results that
account for management decision impacts beyond the realm of reliability and cost
components. The ability of the model to simulate the response of the system over time, as
well as the probabilistic performance of the system in a given year, is critical for a multi-objective
process in which surface and groundwater elements that have different timescale
responses are both key decision variables. Includes 6 references, tables, figures.