By Alexander "Sam" Fernald
Director, Water Resources Research Institute at New Mexico State University
In the western U.S., April 1 is the traditional day to evaluate snow water equivalent, the amount of water held in snowpack that supplies river flow for the coming spring and summer. The mountains of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico hold the snow that melts to feed flow in the Rio Grande and San Juan Rivers.
On April 1, 2026, the graph of snow water equivalent showed the lowest value ever recorded for these mountain watersheds. It was not a hydrologist’s April Fools’ prank; it was a stark depiction of a drying trend marked by less snow water equivalent and declining river flow. Given stressed water resources, water users across New Mexico are asking the same urgent questions: Will my business or farm have enough water to support its activities? Is there enough water for healthy ecosystems? Can I keep my current lifestyle with the water I have? These questions land on the desks of researchers at the New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute at New Mexico State University –– and increasingly, so do the answers. Across the university, scientists are working to better understand our changing water portfolio and to identify new approaches to adapt to changing water supply conditions.
Mountain snowpack is shrinking and melting earlier as temperatures rise, compounding a drought that has gripped New Mexico for more than two decades. As of June 12, 2026, 98 percent of the state was in drought. Meanwhile, atmospheric evaporative demand has increased 15 percent since 1980 and is projected to reach 30 percent by 2060, meaning plants and soils need more water just to stay as hydrated as before. New Mexico isn't just experiencing a temporary dry spell; it's facing a new normal of "heat drought" — the combined effect of less precipitation, earlier snowmelt, and higher temperatures — which is expected to cut river and stream flows by 25 percent over the next 50 years. We're already seeing it in Albuquerque, where the Rio Grande ran dry in May this year, far earlier than in previous dry years.
As river flows shrink, water users are turning to groundwater. With the drying of the Rio Grande, Albuquerque has shut off its river diversions and switched to groundwater pumps. In the Mesilla Valley, decades of declining surface water deliveries have driven the same shift — so much so that, according to NM WRRI's Dynamic Statewide Water Budget model, the Lower Rio Grande region has used more groundwater than surface water since 2010.
Agriculture is the largest user of water in New Mexico, and its effective management is at the heart of New Mexico’s water future. The New Mexico State Legislature invested in the Agricultural Water Resilience Program to fund projects and research aimed at improving agricultural water resilience while maintaining productivity. NM WRRI partners with on-the-ground projects led by farmers and ranchers to conduct research that advances water-saving techniques and technologies. Programs like AgWRP show that New Mexico does not have to choose between supporting agriculture and conserving water—we can and must do both.
The Resilient Agricultural Water Community Systems project, led by NM WRRI and the NMSU College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, exemplifies the land-grant university education, extension, and research mission. The project integrates systems-based approaches to strengthen community resilience in the face of water scarcity. Cutting-edge research incorporates simulations of current and future water use with shifts in crops, changing economic landscapes, and connections to social structures. The project also provides cooperative extension programming to deliver the needed research-based knowledge to communities and water managers.
NMSU researchers in the College of Engineering are developing technologies to treat marginal-quality water sources and provide high-quality water supplies for high-value uses, such as cities and industries. Salty groundwater is widespread in New Mexico, but it was previously unusable due to a lack of technology, economic limitations, and water-quality hurdles. Research through the National Alliance for Water Innovation is developing new treatment technologies that provide usable clean water supplies from salty groundwater or other low-quality groundwaters; this research is showing the potential to extract high-value products such as salts and metals dissolved in the source water. The Strategic Water Supply project, funded by the State of New Mexico, is working to provide support for the state’s initiatives that put these new technologies to work in actual treatment plants that will use treated brackish groundwater as an alternative water supply.
Science to understand and inform water use is taking new leaps forward with advanced computing. Researchers across the NMSU campus are developing artificial intelligence tools to gather a wide variety of data extending from applied projects in the field to satellite remote sensing data and to help translate diverse information into new ways to irrigate, treat water, and even assess transboundary groundwater resources.
More than 200 scientists, educators, and extension specialists involved in water research at NM WRRI and NMSU are helping answer New Mexico's most pressing water questions through 21st century land-grant research and outreach. While we will not be able to mitigate all the impacts of drought and the changing water outlook, we are excited about the positive impacts our research efforts are showing. By working together with collaborative team science, researchers at NMSU are passionate about pioneering innovations to guide New Mexico’s water future for productive agriculture, healthy ecosystems, and thriving communities.
Fernald is a professor of watershed management and director of the Water Resources Research Institute at NMSU. He may be reached at afernald@nmsu.edu.