An Interactive Look at the Texas Drought

Background

Just how much damage has the record single-year drought done to Texas? For the first time, you can see an interactive map and several visualizations that show just how severe the drought has been. On our new interactive web app, ‘Dried Out: Confronting the Texas Drought,’ you can see the intensity of the worst single-year drought in Texas’ history; learn more about the hard choices the state has to make; see the drought’s progression and its impact on the state; explore the pros and cons of the policy decisions that need to be made and share your stories.

See for yourself at our new interactive webpage, Dried Out: Confronting the Texas Drought.

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June 21, 2012

Life By the Drop: Rice Farming After the Water is Cut Off

What role will agriculture play in the future of Texas? Should Texans continue to raise water-intensive crops like corn and rice?

June 20, 2012

Life By the Drop: A Growing Thirst in Austin

Where will the state find the water to sustain its booming urban population?

Life By the Drop: Running Dry in Robert Lee

The story of Robert Lee is one that played out in other small towns across Texas last year. Rivers and reservoirs dried up. Wells failed. With little cash, they rushed to finance lifelines.

June 18, 2012

Coming Friday: A Special Report on the Drought

This Friday we’ll be bringing you a special report, Life By the Drop: Drought, Water and the Future of Texas, a collaboration of StateImpact Texas, KUT News, and Texas Monthly. Life By the Drop is a close look at the state of water and drought in Texas, looking both to the past and the future for answers […]

June 15, 2012

High Schoolers Produce Video Series on the Drought

The Bastrop Fires from AHS Media Arts on Vimeo. For students at Stephen F. Austin High School’s Media Arts program, the one subject they all wanted to report on this year was the drought. As part of PBS Newshour’s Student Reporting Labs project, which pairs public media mentors with high school students learning reporting around […]

Texas Forest Service Heading to New Mexico to Help Battle Fires

During Texas’ worst wildfire season on record last year, more than 16,000 emergency responders and firefighters came to the Lone Star State to help battle the blazes. Today the Texas Forest Service announced that they’re going to send some of their own to help fight the Little Bear Fire near Ruidoso, New Mexico. That fire has […]

June 12, 2012

KUT and StateImpact Texas Win Murrow Award for Drought Coverage

We’re excited to announce today that our lead radio station, KUT Austin, has received a National Edward R. Murrow Award for continuing coverage of the Texas drought. One of our StateImpact Texas reports on how hunters have fared during the drought is part of the award. So a shout-out is in order to our own […]

June 4, 2012

Why Groundwater Is Running Out in the Panhandle

The Texas Panhandle’s corn crops are greener now than they have been in many months. Recent rainfall has given this season’s crops a new lease on life. But, corn crops thirty years from now might not be so lucky. The rapid depletion of the Panhandle’s groundwater supplies could dramatically alter the character of agriculture in […]

May 31, 2012

Drought Monitor: A Slight Reversal

After so much progress over the winter months, it’s a let down to see the drought map released today by the U.S. Drought Monitor showing a slight reversal in recent trends. Despite an overall retreat of drought in Texas, the percentage of the state experiencing drought conditions actually increased by two percentage points since last […]

Thanks to the Drought, Farmland Values Mostly Flat in Texas

If you’re a farmer in the Midwest, chances are your land values have gone up recently. A new survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo. says that irrigated farmland value in those areas grew more than 30 percent over the last year’s first quarter. Factors such as higher crop prices and timely rains […]