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The Rio Grande Aquifer system is a connected system of aquifers located in the Rio Grande Valley and nearby valleys. The system is the primary aquifer for a 70,000 square mile are extending throughout New Mexico along with portions of Southern Colorado and Southwestern Texas. The aquifer provides a valuable resource for agriculture, irrigation, municipal use, and energy production because of its location in an extremely arid climate. The aquifer is managed primarily by the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer. The principal geology of the aquifer is governed by the Rio Grande Rift. The rift can be characterized as a graben with the eastern and western sides of the rift uplifted to form the San Juan and Sandia Mountains and the middle blocks downfaulted and rotated to form the San Luis and Rio Grande Valleys. The rift valleys or basins have been approximated to be as deep as 30,000 feet in the San Luis Valley and 20,000 feet near Albuquerque, NM. The basins are filled with sediment from alluvium and volcanic deposits of rhyolitic and andesitic lavas. Recharge into the aquifer is predominantly from precipitation as rain and snow in the surrounding mountain ranges. Other sources of recharge include perennial streamflow recharge and precipitation falling directly on permeable volcanic bedrock where it is allowed to percolate directly downward into basin-fill aquifers. Very little of precipitation that falls in the valley floors is recharged into aquifers as much of this water is lost to evaporation.
 * 1) Geology
 * Hydrology

Total groundwater withdrawals for the Rio Grande aquifer system totaled 1,200,000 acre-feet circa 1985 with the largest withdrawals coming from agriculture. About 77 percent of withdrawals were attributed to agriculture followed by municipalities withdrawing 15 percent, and the remaining water being withdrawn for domestic, commercial, industrial, mining, and thermoelectric energy. A 2010 USGS estimate of water withdrawals for the state of New Mexico put surface and groundwater withdrawals almost equal for the state with 1,570 Mgal/day withdrawn from groundwater and 1,590 Mgal/day withdrawn from surface water.
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