Groundwater Discharge by Evapotranspiration from the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River and Contributing Areas, Inyo and San Bernardino Counties, California

Abstract

The Amargosa Wild and Scenic River, located in the southwestern Mojave Desert in Inyo and San Bernardino Counties, California, is a Federally protected waterway that supports the biodiversity of the region. Water in the river primarily comes from interbasin groundwater flow that originates as precipitation in the Spring Mountains. The precipitation enters the regional groundwater system and flowwesterly beneath Pahrump, Chicago, and California Valleys before discharging into the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River system. In Pahrump Valley, groundwater discharge occurs as evapotranspiration (ET), spring discharge, and groundwater pumping, and in Chicago and California Valleys, groundwater discharge occurs as ET and spring discharge. Remaining groundwater flows into the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River and its main tributary, the China Ranch Wash, or is discharged from regional springs downgradient from Chicago and California Valleys. The Amargosa Wild and Scenic River and the China Ranch Wash sustain areas of deep-rooted vegetation (phreatophytes) that consume regional groundwater. Dischargfrom regional springs in the area only flows on the land surface for short distances before seeping back into the ground where the water generally is consumed by evaporation from moist soil or by transpiration of plants. Intermittent Amargosa River flow out of the study area is the only other form of discharge. In arid regions such as the Mojave Desert, groundwater discharge by evapotranspiration (ETg) often is the only significant form of discharge in a regional water budget, and therefore, an estimate of annual ETg is a good approximation of the total annual groundwater discharge. In this study area, however, total annual discharge is annual ETg plus the annual surface-water discharge of the Amargosa River that exits the study area. Therefore, the annual ETg from Chicago and California Valleys and along the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River and the China Ranch Wash, plus the discharge of the Amargosa River, is a good approximation of the total annual groundwater discharge required to sustain the riparian habitats and surface-water flow in the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River. The Amargosa Conservancy and Inyo County, Calif., are interested in quantifying the total annual groundwater discharge required to sustain the riparian habitats and surface-water flow in the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River and entered into a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey to estimate ETg from the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River study area. The study area consists of open-water bodies, areas with perennially moist soil, and areas with phreatophytes, all of which are discharging regional groundwater in Chicago and California Valleys, along the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River, and in the China Ranch Wash. Annual ETg for the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River study area is estimated to be 10,139,000 cubic meters. The estimate was determined by delineating boundaries of open water, perennially moist soil, and phreatophytes, multiplying the areas by appropriate site-scale ETg to derive annual ETg for each ET unit, and then adding the annual ETg for all ET units in the GDAs and study area. Boundaries of discharge areas were visually delineated using high-resolution aerial imagery and refined by field verification. Open water and moist soil ETg were estimated in previous investigations, and phreatophyte ETg was estimated from a quadratic relation between site-scale ETg and a vegetation index of the study area. The quadratic relation was derived from four points. Two points were based on the site-scale ETg estimated for this study and two points corresponded to theoretical minimum and maximum points. Site-scale ETg was measured at two ET-monitoring sites using the eddy-covariance method. At one site, located in sparse shrubs, ETg was 0.121 meters per year, and at the other site, located in dense wetland vegetation, ETg was 1.056 meters per year. A scaled normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) that encompasses the study area was created from 0.6-meter resolution multispectral (4-band) aerial imagery from 2020 and was used as an indicator of plant density or cover.