A pipeline to pump water from the Nueces River to the upper delta at Rincon Bayou was constructed to mitigate the reduction of inflow from impoundments. Pumping has restored ecological function to the Nueces Estuary by increasing inflow and decreasing salinity, and transitioned the marsh into a positive estuary (lower salinities upstream increasing downstream towards […]
In the aftermath of flooding disasters, a temptation is to pursue recovery while also dismissing the event as unlikely to recur. Is it possible that underlying streamflow trends, which often avoid detection, help explain individual flooding episodes and should influence future expectations? How do impoundments (dams) affect these trends? Our study provides a comparative analysis […]
I once heard that water should not be considered a human right but a survival right. This simple statement can change the paradigm in which international law evolves toward the construction of an international groundwater legal framework, which today is nonexistent. As Professor Gabriel Eckstein describes in his most recent contribution to the law of […]
The City of San Antonio’s Edwards Aquifer Protection Program utilizes land and conservation easement acquisitions to protect the quality and quantity of Edwards Aquifer recharge. This review considers four key components of its viability: (1) establishing the need for action, (2) choosing an appropriate strategy and funding source, (3) defining purchase guidelines, and (4) demonstrating […]
Three forums were held between February 2015 and November 2016, bringing together Texas water experts from business, industry, government, academia, research, and the investment community in impartially facilitated sessions to determine ways to secure Texas’ water future through accelerating growth of infrastructure, technologies, research, education, and sustainable use. Consensus emerged after the first forum that […]
Despite being deemed the “Undergraduate Geology Scholar” when I graduated from New Mexico Tech, I’m not a geologist. My undergraduate degree is in geophysics, which meant drinking wine with physicists and mathematicians more frequently than drinking beer with geologists (which is why geologists tend to be suspicious of geophysicists). My graduate studies were focused on […]
Historically, economic theory has played a miniscule role in groundwater policy deliberations because of its complexity. This paper is intended for practitioners. Its goal is to distill the seminal 1931 paper by Harold Hotelling and show how it can be applied to manage a quasi-nonrenewable resource like groundwater. Hotelling’s framework is then used to critique […]
Editor-in-Chief’s Note: In every odd-numbered year, the Texas Legislature convenes in regular session for 140 days. With this in mind, the Texas Water Journal invited Senator Charles Perry, Chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Water & Rural Affairs Committee, and Representative Lyle Larson, Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, to discuss their priorities and visions […]
In 1997, in the wake of a severe, statewide drought, the Texas Legislature passed an omnibus water bill that, among other things, fundamentally changed how Texas develops its state water plans. The resulting 5-year, bottom-up regional approach to planning has since formed the basis of the last 4 state water plans. Nearly a generation after […]
In a time when the competition for water resources is increasing, water law and policy for groundwater is evolving, bringing to the fore the conflict between surface use and groundwater. Unlike the oil and gas context where the mineral estate is dominant, the superiority of severed groundwater to the surface estate has remained uncertain. The […]
