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Show vated are generally the alluvial soils in valley floors along rivers which can supply irrigation water. Socio-Economic Features Population: Distribution, Growth, Indian Cultures The Rio Grande Basin is one of the oldest areas of known settled human habitation in our country. Despite this fact and the size of the area, the basin has only about 1.3 million residents. Three population groups are identified with the settlement of the area. Indians were living in pueblos along the Rio Grande and upper Pecos River in New Mexico, irrigating and cultivating land in the valleys when Spanish explorers came in 1540. A period of Spanish settlement followed and Spanish domination continued for 300 years. After the Civil War, Anglo-American migration into the basin began and expanded rapidly after the build- ing of railroads in the area. These three groups are still distinguishable in the basin population. As irrigation is essential for crop production throughout the basin, the distribution of population follows closely the distribution of irrigated land. People are concentrated in favorable locations along the river valleys while extensive portions of the area remain very sparsely settled. There are few large urban centers in the basin. They include Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Roswell, N. Mex., and El Paso, Laredo, Brownsville, Har- lingen, and McAllen, Tex. These range in size from 130,000 to 20,000. Approximately one-third of the population of the Rio Grande lives in these cities. Population growth has been rapid in the past decade. Census data show an average increase of 36.9 percent. Greatest increase was in the Texas part of the basin and in urban centers in New Mexico. Nature of the Economy The most outstanding characteristic of the econ- omy of the Rio Grande Basin is the importance of agriculture, in which livestock production pre- dominates. Manufacturing is of minor importance as compared with the United States as a whole. Mineral extraction is significant in parts of the basin but mineral processing is less important than might be expected considering the extent of these resources. The tourist and resort trade is a major source of economic support, especially in New Mexico and Colorado. Government-financed projects for de- velopment of atomic energy and for national defense have become important in recent years. Scarcity of water is a limiting factor for any kind of economic expansion in this area. The flow of the Rio Grande and its tributaries and known ground water supplies are fully appropriated, and no water is available to allow for expansion of irrigation nor for substantial increase in municipal or industrial use. Present Forms of Resource Use Agriculture.-The economy of the Rio Grande Basin is dominated by agriculture, irrigation farm- ing along the river valleys where water is available, and livestock production on extensive range lands which, with few exceptions, cannot be used for cultivated crops. Within the Rio Grande Basin there are approxi- mately 3.3 million acres of cultivated land, 60 per- cent of which is irrigated and 40 percent is dry farmed. The cultivated lands are in the alluvial valleys where rivers supply irrigation water, or on the deep soils of plateaus where precipitation is sufficient to permit growing small grains, sorghums, and beans by dry farming. Irrigation enterprises vary from a few large proj- ects, such as in the Masilla and El Paso Valleys be- low Elephant Butte Reservoir, the Carlsbad area on the Pecos, and the extensive irrigated area near the mouth of the river, to more than 100 small com- munity projects, which depend upon direct diver- sion or simple impoundments. Practically every kind of irrigated crop is pro- duced somewhere in the basin-from vegetables and hay in the high, cool, short-season San Luis Valley in Colorado to winter vegetables and citrus fruit in the semitropical lower valley near the Gulf of Mexico. A considerable acreage of cotton is 289 ,950 !940 S«« El Paso, Tex...............130,003 96,810 34.3 Albuquerque, N. Mex....... 97,012 35,449 173.7 Laredo, Tex............... 51,694 39,274 31.6 Brownsville, Tex........... 36,176 22,083 63. 8 Santa Fe, N. Mex.......... 27, 547 20,325 35. 5 Roswell, N. Mex........... 25,572 13,482 89.7 Harlingen, Tex............ 23,202 13,306 74.4 McAllen, Tex.............. 20,005 11,877 68.4 |