All the graphics are also clickable. Whenever a well appears in a graphic (location map, contour map, etc), clicking on the well symbol will take you to the data for the well.
The data presented in these pages consists of the following:
The data for specific wells can be accessed through the well lists or location maps.
On each of the well location maps for individual wells, you can also click on any well shown on the maps and get the data for that well.
In a number of instances, more than one well is shown with identical coordinates. Co-located wells are listed below the main title in these cases. EW32C and EW32U are examples of such a pair of wells. You can get from one well to the other using the link below the title.
In some instances, wells are closely spaced, but not exactly identical, such as NA03701031BBB (RG-68A) and NA03700930CCC. When clicking on the location map, the closest well is selected. Artfully clicking near the edge of the well symbol yields one well or the other.
Well Locations were determined from several methods. RGWCD wells were correlated with USGS wells and plotted at locations indicated in the USGS database. The USGS database contained latitude and longitude information which was transformed into the coordinate system used for mapping (RGDSS). USBR well locations were provided in State Plane Coordinate System and were transformed to the coordinate system used for mapping (RGDSS). CDWR well locations were provided in the RGDSS coordinate system.
Elevation and Depth Data were combined from the various datasets with the selected value determined in the following order: RGWCD data, USBR data, USGS data, and CDWR data. All existing values are included in the well information tables provided for each well.
Aquifer Information consists of aquifer type (confined or unconfined) and hydrologic unit name. The confined/unconfined nature of the aquifer was determined using the following method. Some USGS well records contained information regarding the nature of the aquifer and this information was used where available. The USBR wells are noted as confined or unconfined in the well ID (U or C suffix). The remaining wells were determined through depth information. Wells less than 80 feet deep were designated as unconfined and wells deeper than 80 feet were designated as confined. There are potentially some discrepencies using this method and approximately 30-40 wells do not have depth information making this determination impossible.
Site Use and Water Use data were taken directly from the USGS database.
Water-Level Data was obtained from each of the databases. All data was normalized to positive numbers indicating depth to water from the ground surface. All data is plotted on the individual well hydrographs and included in the data tables with indication of the source(s) for each measurement.
Positional information in the USGS database shows the wells at the same longitude (105 degrees 55 minutes 39 seconds west) by three arc seconds (about 300 feet) apart in latitude (37 degrees 24 minutes 53 and 56 seconds north). However, the one well is shown as range 9 and the other as range 10, which should make the wells about six miles apart. For well NA03701031BBB (RG-68A) both the latitude and longitude and the township-range-section correspond to the same location. For well NA03700930CCC the latitude and longitude and township-range-section locations differ by about six miles. It is unclear whether the range for well NA03700930CCC is wrong, or whether the latitude and longitude is wrong.
Errors such as these are readily detected. However, more subtle data entry errors such as transposed digits or mistyped values are harder to detect. Since some of the gross errors still existed at the time the databases were received from various agencies despite their extensive quality control programs, it is almost assured that more subtle errors exist.
Consider, for example NA03801202DAD2 (RG45A). Measurements in the USGS and RGWCD databases differ by 0.1 feet on 6/16/1993, by 0.01 feet on 4/15/1994 and by 0.7 feet on 7/13/1994. The 0.01 and 0.1 feet differences are likely transcription errors. The 0.7 feet difference is the so-called "well stickup", a correction applied to the measurement to correct the vlaue from the well measurement point to ground surface. The difference is likely due to the correction not being applied by one of the data sources, or the correction being applied twice by one of the data sources.
Consider next well NA03801202DAD. This well is 440 feet deep and is likely a confined aquifer well. In the USGS database, measurements from 10/5/1975 until 2/4/1976 are identically zero. It is unclear what this means. The measurement on 9/3/1975 is 13.4 feet and measurements from 7/15/1976 onwards show an exponential decay in the water levels lasting more than a year. If the zero measurements indicate that the well was flowing, a significant event must have occured in or near the well.
In the RGWCD and USBR databases, wells are known by the Rio Grande well number such as RG-45A and the Evaluation Well name such as EW-09, respectively. What all three databases have in common is a township-range-section descriptor such as NA03801202DAD2. In this example, N denotes the New Mexico principle meridian, north-east quadrant, township 38 north, range 12 east, section 2. The DAD designites the south-east, north-east, south-east quarters in decreasing size. The trailing 2 is used to make the well name unique. Except on rare occasions where a database such as the USGS database also contain the EW or RG name of the well, this township-range-section designation is used to match wells between the different databases.
Consider now the water level data for NA03801202DAD2 (RG45A). In this instance the match between the USGS and the RGWCD is exact for most of the data points and we can therefore be confident that the wells are in fact correctly matched.