Active Water Resource Management in New Mexico

In accordance with New Mexico state law, the Office of the State Engineer (OSE) and a companion agency, the Interstate Stream Commission, are charged with administering and managing the public waters of New Mexico. In recent years, an increase in demand on water supplies coupled with prolonged drought has brought water use and management to the forefront of public attention in New Mexico and the rest of the world. Concerns over endangered species have added to the complex issue of properly managing limited water supplies as resource managers strive to find new ways to encourage water conservation in both the private and public sectors and provide sufficient and viable wildlife habitat.

Water usage agreements between New Mexico and neighboring states have also been strained to the point of legal contention as managers struggle to provide water for those downstream. Increased demands from outside of the state and from within have fostered new methods of addressing water-related issues such as the determination and administration of water rights.

In response, the OSE has developed an enterprise system capable of managing a large amount of individual water right claims data in an integrated fashion. This information is used in the water right adjudication process expediting the technical portion of a legal task that historically could take as long as 10 years. Armed with the latest in technology and science, water managers and administrators in New Mexico take on the burden of finding a balance between sustainable use and overuse of our most precious and most limited natural resource—water.