Climate Change To Affect SF Watershed

The impact of that change, at a minimum, includes increased temperatures, diminished snowpack and earlier spring melts, reduced stream flow, drier mid-to-late summers, increased fire activity and possibility of “catastrophic” fires and more frequent “intense” precipitation that could cause flooding and erosion.

“These are the things that will be the new normal,” City Water Resources Coordinator Claudia Borchert told the Public Utilities Committee during a presentation last week.

“We can position ourselves for the new normal, or we can suffer the consequences,” Borchert said.

The city staff, working in conjunction with a number of partners, has been analyzing how climate change will affect the watershed and water resources.

The preliminary assessment presented to the city’s Public Utilities Committee was produced in part from a climate change workshop the city, county and federal Bureau of Reclamation held last March. It’s dubbed “Climate Change and the Santa Fe Watershed: A Preliminary Assessment.”

To minimize effects, the report makes a number of recommendations for local government and others, including improving ecosystem diversity, increasing water system storage, creating a municipal energy system, installing more solar panels, expanding water harvesting techniques and establishing a climate change targeted monitoring system.

“The degree to which we will gracefully weather and adapt to the impacts will be largely determined by the preparations we engage in today,” the report said.

The report notes that most of these adaptation activities are sound practices that would benefit the area even if climate change weren’t a threat.

Santa Fe is already taking action with activities, such as forest thinning, monitoring, water supply planning, arroyo stabilization, urban gardening and preservation of green spaces, the report noted.

City officials hope to complete a final assessment later this month, then create a flier or brochure that can be distributed to the public. Work on related issues will continue over the next couple of years, including possible modification of Santa Fe’s long-range water supply plan.

The report can be read at santafenm.gov.