River Systems Institute

River Systems Institute

With founding support from the Meadows Foundation and the Houston Endowment, Texas State University created what is now the River Systems Institute in 2002. The Institute's programs and projects demonstrate our deep commitment to the careful stewardship of the world's freshwater resources. Through collaborative research, public advocacy, and education on river systems, the Institute affirms the unique role of water in our lives. As one of the earth's most remarkable resources, we are dedicated to preserving and protecting this irreplaceable gift - water.

Events

TCEQ Proposed 2012 Texas Nonpoint Source Management Program

On January 25, 2012, the TCEQ Commissioners will consider whether to authorize publication of the Proposed 2012 Texas Nonpoint Source Management Program for formal comment by the public. The Management Program is a 5-year plan jointly developed by the TCEQ and the TSSWCB to describe the strategies and practices that the state uses to manage nonpoint source pollution in Texas. All Nonpoint Source grant projects funded by these agencies are intended to implement this plan. For more information, click here for the TCEQ Management Plan web page.

First Meeting for Phase Two

Cypress Creek Watershed Protection Plan

Wednesday, April 4, 2012
2pm-5pm
Wimberley Community Center

The Cypress Creek Project will hold the first public meeting for... See More

Check Out our webpage for the San Marcos Observing System (SMOS)

Click Here for the latest Cypress Creek Newsletter (PDF)

World Water Day

March 22, 2012

Click here for a PBS Newshour video: "Coping With Climate Change: 2 Texas Towns Struggle for Water".

World Water Day has come and gone but awareness should continue to spread. Take this CNN quiz and expand your knowledge!

Latest Newsletter Updates

From May 9, 2012

Not a Drop to Drink: The Global Water Crisis

The recent UN alert that drought in the Sahel threatens 15 million lives is a harbinger of things to come. In the next 20 years, global demand for fresh water will vastly outstrip reliable supply in many parts of the world. Thanks to population growth and agricultural intensification, humanity is drawing more heavily than ever on shared river basins and underground aquifers. Meanwhile, global warming is projected to exacerbate shortages in already water-stressed regions, even as it accelerates the rapid melting of glaciers and snow cover upon which a billion people depend for their ultimate source of water. This sobering message emerges from the first U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment of Global Water Security. The document predicts that by 2030 humanity's “annual global water requirements” will exceed “current sustainable water supplies” by forty percent. Absent major policy interventions, water insecurity will generate widespread social and political instability and could even contribute to state failure in regions important to U.S. national security. The need for reliable sources of fresh water is as old as our species, of course. What is new today is the combustible combination of surging global demand for increasingly scarce fresh water in certain volatile regions of poor governance. Several factors are driving this trend: demographic pressure, declining freshwater supplies, changing dietary preferences and poor water management. Significantly, the intelligence community does not predict that increased competition for water resources will, by itself, be a source of violent conflict. And yet the same document warns that water stress may well “contribute to the risk of instability and state failure,” particularly “when combined with poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions.”

Effect of Groundwater Use: Using Water from Wells Leads to Sea Level Rise

As people pump groundwater for irrigation, drinking water, and industrial uses, the water doesn't just seep back into the ground -- it also evaporates into the atmosphere, or runs off into rivers and canals, eventually emptying into the world's oceans. This water adds up, and a new study calculates that by 2050, groundwater pumping will cause a global sea level rise of about 0.8 millimeters per year. "Other than ice on land, the excessive groundwater extractions are fast becoming the most important terrestrial water contribution to sea level rise," said Yoshihide Wada, with Utrecht University in the Netherlands and lead author of the study. In the coming decades, he noted, groundwater contributions to sea level rise are expected to become as significant as those of melting glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and the Antarctic. The research team's article is being published May 9 in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Texas Stream Team to Conduct Monitor Training in Weslaco

The Texas Stream Team will be conducting a core volunteer water quality monitor training this Saturday, May 12th, at the Estero Llano Grande World Birding Center in Weslaco, TX from 9:00am to 5:00pm. This event is being held for the Arroyo Colorado Watershed Partnership. Volunteers will be trained to monitor dissolved oxygen, pH, conductivity, water temperature, transparency, depth, and various field observations. The public is welcome. Those interested in attending can contact them at (877)506-1401 or email at txstreamteam@txstate.edu. Texas Stream Team facilitates citizen-based water quality monitoring and nonpoint source pollution prevention education through a network of trained volunteers and partnering organizations: Texas State University, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Currently, over 1,400 Texas Stream Team volunteers collect water quality data on lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands, bays, bayous, and estuaries in Texas.

Final Session of Texas Water Symposium to be Held in San Antonio

The final session of this season of the Texas Water Symposium -- Groundwater for Texans -- will to be held at Trinity University in San Antonio. A distinguished panel will discuss the recent ruling by the Texas Supreme Court on the highly publicized Day v. EAA case regarding ownership of groundwater. The program will explore the effects on a variety of stakeholders and a look at the complex water policy framework in Texas. A mix of viewpoints will be presented and discussed. The Texas Water Symposium Series is a format known for creating balanced conversations about complex water issues — who owns the groundwater, how will it be managed, and at what price. The Symposium is an invitation to listen and learn as part of the live audience or from the radio broadcast. This event is free and open to the public. Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune moderates a panel of participants who represent a who's who in current Texas water policy and analysis: Andrew Sansom, Executive Director of the River Systems Institute at TSU; Greg Ellis, attorney specializing in groundwater law; Tom Mason of Graves Dougherty Hearon & Moody and former General Manager at LCRA; and Russell Johnson, McGinnis, Lochridge and Kilgore and lead counsel for the Texas Wildlife Association.

Studying Carbon in Rivers

Carbon gets a lot of attention, largely because of its impact on climate change. But its behavior in the atmosphere is only one part of the carbon cycle. The biological and physical changes to carbon on the earth also are key to how fast carbon moves through its cycle, as well as the form it takes. Thus, “it's important to study all aspects of the loop,” says scientist Hilairy Hartnett. “Carbon is one of the main currencies of most living things on the planet,'' says Hartnett, associate professor in the school of earth and space exploration, and in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at Arizona State University. “Almost everything that is alive needs organic carbon for energy.” Hartnett is studying what happens to carbon in the Colorado River, a large and heavily managed river that flows 1,450 miles from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California, and serves as the main water supply for the desert Southwest, including Arizona, Southern Utah, Nevada and Southern California. Her goal is to understand how organic carbon moves from the land to the ocean, and how it changes, or doesn't change, along the way. “The types of molecules that get to the ocean are really important in understanding how much of that carbon gets preserved,” she says. “I would like to know how biogeochemical processes in rivers affect the type of carbon that gets to the ocean. When you look at the ocean, you're not looking at pieces of tree. I want to know what happens to that material before it gets to the ocean. We want to know how much carbon makes it all the way to the end of the river, and how it differs from the carbon at the beginning.”

 

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