The drought of 2011 may have been the canary in the coal mine of water security for Texas. That was the consensus of a panel of specialists at the 2012 Texas Water Summit hosted by the University of Texas at Austin’s Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science on Monday. While the recent drought was no […]
Texas isn’t alone dealing with the issues of water and drought, and one of the most recent examples of a large population dealing with drought comes from Australia.
Landscape worker Janna George sweats in the midday sun as she thrusts her shovel into the ground. She’s trying to get up all the grass in the backyard of a South Austin home. As anyone who’s dug into the Central Texas ground and come out with a rock-dented shovel knows, there’s little dirt to dig […]
Tracking the changes in water availability across the state using a variety of tools is an integral component of predicting and responding to drought. That’s what David R. Maidment of the Center of Research in Water Resources at UT had to say at the Texas Water Summit held Monday. As a member of the innovative […]
Earlier this week we posted a video and audio report from Andy Uhler of KUT News (one of the public radio stations in the StateImpact Texas project) about a small community ten miles outside of Austin that lives without running water, the colonia of Las Lomitas. In the second and third part of the series, […]
How renewed opposition by rice farmers could throw a compromise deal on water management in the Lower Colorado back into question.
San Antonio is something of a poster-child for smarter water use in Texas. The city has reduced its per-capita water usage by 42 percent over the last few decades, despite one of the fastest-growing populations in the country. At the 2012 Texas Water Summit at the University of Texas at Austin’s Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science Monday, Robert Puente, the President and CEO […]
While some Texas towns ran dry during the drought, or came close to doing so, one community has been living without water regardless of how much rain falls in the state. In a rural subdivision less than ten miles outside of Austin, some thirty families live without running water. Most of them are low-income and […]
Water, water everywhere. Let’s keep some drops to drink. But how? That’s why scientists, politicians, and water utility leaders are meeting up today for the 2012 Texas Water Summit from the University of Texas at Austin’s Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science. It will feature prominent statewide leaders on water issues like state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, San Antonio Water […]
The word Thursday derives from the Old Norse thorsdagr, meaning “Thor’s Day.” But here at StateImpact Texas, Thursday means something else entirely. It’s the day the U.S. drought monitor releases it’s weekly drought map! Thor was the Norse god of thunder, and parts of Texas saw plenty of storms (and rain) last week, raising hopes […]
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