Water Resources of Texas

Spotlight on USGS News

Spotlight on Texas Projects

The Texas Water Science Center conducts hydrologic projects that address a wide variety of water-resources issues, including water supply, groundwater contamination, nutrient loading in streams, effects of land use on water quality, and basic hydrologic data collection.

All Texas Projects

Featured Project:

Contaminants in Streambed and Suspended-Sediments in Bexar County

Elevated concentrations of sediment-associated contaminants are typically associated with urban areas, and San Antonio is the seventh most populous city in the U.S. During 2007–09, the USGS collected streambed sediment samples during baseflow and suspended-sediment samples during stormwater runoff at 20 sites in the Medio Creek, Medina River, Elm Creek, Martinez Creek, Chupaderas Creek, Leon Creek, Salado Creek, and San Antonio River watersheds. The samples were analyzed for major and trace elements and organic compounds including halogenated compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Concentrations were mostly low compared to consensus-based sediment-quality guidelines and compared to samples collected during previous USGS studies in the Austin and Fort Worth areas. The overall degree of sediment contamination was highest in samples collected from four sites in Leon Creek and one site in the San Antonio River.

Fact Sheet | Spanish language version

Podcasts/Videos

Paint it Black
by Douglas Harned
Pete Van Metre and Barbara Mahler discuss an experiment to assess release of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) from coal tar pavement sealant after application on a parking lot.

Watch the video at vimeo.com

Featured Publications

Spatially Pooled Depth-Dependent Reservoir Storage, Elevation, and Water-Quality Data for Selected Reservoirs in Texas, January 1965–January 2010

By Thomas E. Burley, William H. Asquith, and Donald L. Brooks






The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Texas Tech University, constructed a dataset of selected reservoir storage, reservoir elevation, and water-quality data from 59 reservoirs throughout Texas. Data were acquired from existing databases, spreadsheets, delimited text files, and hard-copy reports. Data were combined from multiple sources to create as complete a set of properties and constituents as the disparate databases allowed. By devising a unique per-reservoir short name to represent all sites on a reservoir regardless of their source, all sampling sites at a reservoir were spatially pooled by reservoir and temporally combined by date. This report presents a collection of delimited text files of source-aggregated, spatially pooled, depth-dependent, instantaneous water-quality data as well as instantaneous, daily, and monthly storage and elevation reservoir data.

Data Series Report

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Data Highlights

2011 Water Data Now Available (Quick look:
Beginning with water year 2006, the annual water data product took on a new format different from the previous report series. The basic product is a Site Data Sheet that serves to publish all data collected during the water year at any given site.

For more information about this topic, click now.)

The 2011 USGS Water Data Report () is now available to provide a snapshot of water conditions for a given year. The report includes text and map interfaces that can be used to identify and access an area of interest, locate sites where water data were collected for various Water Years

Instantaneous Data Archive (IDA) (Quick look:
Since 1889 the United States Geological Survey has collected continuous stage, discharge, and other instantaneous time-series data on the nations rivers and streams. These time-series data have been and are typically recorded at intervals ranging from 5 to 60 minutes. These instantaneous data have been processed into and published as various daily values, such as the daily maximum, minimum, and/or mean. Because the published record are daily values, the original instantaneous data have not historically been officially approved, published, or made widely available. This web site has been established to make available as much historical instantaneous data from USGS data collection stations as possible. Although this site currently serves instantaneous discharge (streamflow) data only, work is planned to extend it to other time-series parameters in the future.

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The Instantaneous Data Archive() makes available as much intra-day streamflow data and historical instantaneous data continuous (measurements from every 5 to every 60 minutes), as possible, often several years' worth of data.