Percentage of Surface Drinking Water from Intermittent,
Ephemeral, and Headwater Streams in New Mexico
| Farmington
Key:
Intermittent, ephemeral,
and headwater stream
miles as percentage of
total stream miles
contained in all SPAs
for a given county
Legend: This map highlights regional patterns of dependence on intermittent, ephemeral, and headwater streams for surface drinking
water in New Mexico. In New Mexico, 2,974 total miles of streams provide water for surface water intakes supplying public drinking water
systems; of this, 1,996 miles, or 67%, are intermittent, ephemeral, or headwater streams. Over 280,000 people in New Mexico receive
drinking water from public drinking water systems that rely at least in part on intermittent, ephemeral, or headwater streams. This analysis
compared the stream lengdi of intermittent, ephemeral, and headwater streams to total stream lengdi within all mapped Source Protection
Areas (SPAs) for each county. A SPA is an area upstream from a drinking water source or intake that contributes surface water flow to the
drinking water intake during a 24-hour period. This is based on data that generally do not include streams less than one mile in length.
Intermittent streams are streams containing water for only part of the year. Ephemeral streams flow in response to precipitation events.
First-order streams have been used to represent headwater streams.
Data Sources: National Hydrography Dataset Plus at medium resolution; Federal Safe Drinking Water Information System 4th Quarter
2006 Data.

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