PROGRESS REPORT ON DEVELOPMENT OF AN ANNOTED BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR TRANSBOUNDARY AQUIFER SYSTEMS OF THE MESILLA BASIN-PASO DEL NORTE REGION, NEW MEXICO, TEXAS, AND CHIHUAHUA

The 2007 United States-Mexico Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Act program has the goal of characterizing, mapping, and modeling priority transboundary aquifers along the United States-Mexico border at levels of detail determined to be appropriate for a given aquifer system. Mandated studies include an assessment of the Mesilla Basin-Paso del Norte aquifer system by New Mexico and Texas offices of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Water Resources Research Institutes at NMSU (NMWRRI) and TAMU-El Paso. This work is being done in cooperation with a binational group of state- and federal-level organizations, who have shared interests in western Texas, southern New Mexico, and northern Chihuahua. One of the initial tasks is to “compile extant information,” including a bibliography of transboundary aquifers of the Mesilla Basin-Paso del Norte region that includes the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez metropolitan area with population of about two million. The NMWRRI led the first phase of this effort in collaboration with the USGS and Cuerpo Académico de Geociencias del Departamento de Ingeniería Civil y Ambiental at the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (CAG/UACJ). A preliminary annotated reference list, with provisional alphanumeric cross-referencing codes for almost 400 items, has now been developed for the NM-TX-Chihuahua Transboundary region. Major topics include: bibliographies and reviews; historical documents; environmental and geologic settings; basic hydrogeologic concepts; GIS/remote sensing and land-use planning; regional geohydrology; basin to local-scale aquifer systems (hydrogeology, hydrochemistry, geophysics, and groundwater-flow models); and paleohydrology. Short explanatory annotations (English/Spanish) will be created for specific references as needed; and EndNote® software is being used to facilitate bibliography, reference-list and foot-note word processing. After peer review, the NMWRRI plans to create a bilingual (hardcopy and online) publication in collaboration with USGS Water Science Centers in New Mexico and Texas, and the TAMU AgriLife Research Center at El Paso for joint release and posting on appropriate internet sites.