Historical Rainfall Patterns and Arroyo Activity within the Zuni River Drainage Basin, New Mexico

Climate change, grazing practices, timbering activities, and erosional thresholds have been proposed to explain widespread accelerated arroyo erosion near the turn of the century in the southwestern United States. We analyze the morphology and potential causes of arroyo activity in the Zuni River drainage basin of New Mexico; our analyses illustrate the linkage between arroyos and changes that occurred through time in local precipitation patterns. Substantial archival and geological evidence confirms dominant downcutting in the intermediate and smallsize arroyos within the basin for a 20- to 30- year period beginning near 1905. Historical climatic records reveal a long and severe drought from 1898–1904; this drought ended abruptly with three years dominated by unusually frequent high-intensity summer rainfall events. Daily weather records show the following two to three decades had a high number of intense summer storms, large rainfall totals, and few precipitation days. The results add support for the climate change explanation of periods dominated by arroyo incision and infilling in the southwestern U.S

Cartography · Climate change · Drainage · Drainage basin · Erosion · Geography · Geomorphology · Hydrology (agriculture) · Period (music) · Physical geography · Precipitation · Storm · Structural basin · Archaeology and Natural History · Ecology · Geology · Hydrology and Sediment Transport Processes · Oceanography · Soil erosion and sediment transport

• Melting the Kachinas

  Open Access•Eric P Perramond, Eric Perramond•Journal of Political Ecology•2005

  Añadir item

• Vanishing river

  Open Access•Gary Huckleberry•Geoarchaeology•2000

  Añadir item

• Evidence for Younger Dryas global climate oscillation and human response in the American Southwest

  Open Access•Jesse A M Ballenger, Vance T Holliday et al.•Quaternary International•2011

  Añadir item

• Biogeochemical studies of a Native American runoff agroecosystem

  Open Access•Jonathan A Sandor, Jay B Norton et al.•Geoarchaeology•2007

  Añadir item

• Alluvial cycles, climate, and puebloan settlement shifts near Zuni Salt Lake, New Mexico, USA

  Open Access•Gary Huckleberry, Andrew I Duff•Geoarchaeology•2007

  Añadir item

• Late holocene behavior of Chaco and McElmo Canyon drainages (Southwest U.S.)

  Open Access•Eric R Force•Geoarchaeology•2004

  Añadir item

• Channel and Vegetation Change on the Cimarron River, Southwestern Kansas, 1953–2001

  Jeffrey A VanLooy, Charles W Martin•Annals of the Association of…•2005

  Añadir item

• Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Stream Channel Incision in the Loess Region of the Missouri River

  Reuben A Heine, Christopher L Lant et al.•Annals of the Association of…•2009

  Añadir item

• Floodwater Farming, Discontinuous Ephemeral Streams, and Puebloan Abandonment in Southwestern Colorado

  Open Access•Gary Huckleberry, Gary A Huckleberry et al.•American Antiquity•1998

  Añadir item

• The Bonito Paleochannel in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

  W H Wills, Katharine Williams et al.•KIVA•2024

  Añadir item

• Casualty of historic arroyo incision in the southwestern United States

  Open Access•Jerry R Miller•Anthropocene•2017

  Añadir item

• Date of arroyo cutting in the American Southwest and the influence of human activities

  Open Access•Scott B Aby•Anthropocene•2017

  Añadir item

• Thresholds of stability in incised "Anthropocene" landscapes

  Open Access•Joan L Florsheim, Anne Chin et al.•Anthropocene•2013

  Añadir item

• A Maize Experiment in a Traditional Zuni Agroecosystem

  Open Access•Deborah A Muenchrath, Jonathan A Sandor et al.•Journal of Ethnobiology•2017

  Añadir item

• Ephemeral-Stream Processes

  Open Access•Peter C Patton, Stanley A Schumm•Quaternary Research•1981

  Añadir item

• Arroyos and Environmental Change in the American South-West

  Andrew Goudie, A S Goudie et al.•Geographical Journal•1977

  Añadir item