Environmental Flows in the Rio Grande-Rio Bravo Basin
Channel: Conservation and Adaptation Resources Toolbox
Date: 2022-02-04

The Rio Grande/Bravo (RGB) is an arid river basin shared by the United States and Mexico, the fifth-longest river in North America and home to over 10.4 million people. By crossing landscapes and political boundaries, the RGB brings together cultures, societies, ecosystems, and economies forming a complex social-ecological system (SES). The RGB supplies water for the human activities that take place within its territory. While there have been efforts to implement environmental flows (flows necessary to sustain riparian and aquatic ecosystems and human activities), a systematic and whole-basin analysis of these efforts that conceptualizes the RGB as a single, complex SES has been missing. The objective of this study was to address this research and policy gap and shed light on challenges, opportunities, and success stories for implementing environmental flows in the RGB.

Presented by Samuel Sandoval, University of California-Davis, and Stephanie Paladino, collaborator with the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center and the University of Oklahoma's Center for Applied Social Research

February 1st, 2022