About our Sessions

This presentation will highlight key issues and collaborative endeavors of government agencies and engineering firms in meeting the water-related needs of the people of Texas. Dramatic temporal and spatial hydrologic variability, including extremes of floods and droughts, is managed in an environment of rapid population growth and continually increasing demands on limited resources. A book by the presenter with the same title as this presentation was published by ASCE Press in 2024. A basic theme of the book is that effective, innovative water management practices developed and implemented by the water management community of Texas provide an experience base that can significantly benefit similar endeavors throughout the nation and world. The presentation will focus on statewide, regional, and operational planning; water allocation including water rights in Texas and compacts and treaties with neighboring states and Mexico; environmental flow standards; and reservoir and conveyance system development and operations.

Effective water management requires reliability or frequency-based assessments of capabilities for addressing water needs. The presenter has contributed over many years to expanding water availability modeling (WAM) capabilities of the water rights analysis package (WRAP) modeling system employed by the Texas water management community in support of the water management endeavors noted above. The ASCE book describes application of the WRAP modeling system in Texas. The WRAP website (https://wrap.engr.tamu.edu/) provides access to software, manuals, publications, and training courses. The presentation will include an update on current WRAP/WAM modeling capabilities and issues.