Understanding Texas Water: GIS Data from the Texas Water Development Board

Texas Water Development Board GIS Datasets

http://www.twdb.texas.gov/mapping/gisdata.asp

The Texas Water Development Board provides GIS datasets in two categories: natural features, and administrative boundaries. The first category is primarily composed of water features in the state of Texas, but some land features are also included. Rivers, major and minor aquifers, precipitation, and hillshade data are a few of the shapefiles provided. Texas wells and well districts are also included. Administrative boundary shapefiles on the website include groundwater conservation and management areas, regional water planning areas, and river authorities, among others. Many of the shapefiles are derived from data collected by the TWDB, but the data may come from other federal agencies as indicated by the file description. These data combined furnish a relatively comprehensive overview of the Texas water landscape.

In order to characterize the location of our bridge runoff study, we will use river and aquifer datasets from the TWDB. This will be some of our background data for our study introduction and justification. We will also use precipitation data in our study analysis—we need to know average annual and monthly precipitation levels to extrapolate our pollutant findings to the region. If we discover any alarming pollutant levels, we can locate our water conservation district on the TWDB site in order to report our findings to the appropriate authorities.