Applications of Expanded WRAP Modeling Capabilities to the Brazos WAM

The Water Rights Analysis Package (WRAP) is routinely applied in the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Water Availability Modeling (WAM) System. However, the Brazos River Basin studies documented by this report represent inaugural applications of the following new WRAP modeling capabilities: (1) conditional reliability modeling to determine short-term storage and flow frequencies and supply reliabilities conditioned on preceding reservoir storage contents; (2) capabilities added to allow simulations to be performed with daily time steps; and (3) simulation of reservoir operations for flood control. The Brazos WAM studies presented in this report provide a data and experience base for evaluating, demonstrating, and developing guidance for applying the new WRAP modeling capabilities. The studies also provide a better understanding of water management in the Brazos River Basin

AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF A CORN-SOYBEAN CROP ROTATION UNDER VARIOUS INPUT COMBINATIONS IN SOUTH CENTRAL TEXAS

Eight input combinations of commercial fertilizer, insecticides, and herbicides on a corn-soybean crop rotation in the Brazos River Bottom of Texas are evaluated. Input combinations which do not fully utilize all three inputs are consistently ranked higher by all criteria as the preferred input strategy for the corn-soybean rotation system. These results, which indicate limited input crop rotations that fall somewhere between the extremes of conventional agricultural production and organic agriculture, deserve further attention as a possible production alternative.corn, limited input, soybean, Crop Production/Industries,

Analysis of Daily Streamflow Complexity by Kolmogorov Measures and Lyapunov Exponent

Analysis of daily streamflow variability in space and time is important for water resources planning, development, and management. The natural variability of streamflow is being complicated by anthropogenic influences and climate change, which may introduce additional complexity into the phenomenological records. To address this question for daily discharge data recorded during the period 1989-2016 at twelve gauging stations on Brazos River in Texas (USA), we use a set of novel quantitative tools: Kolmogorov complexity (KC) with its derivative associated measures to assess complexity, and Lyapunov time (LT) to assess predictability. We find that all daily discharge series exhibit long memory with an increasing downflow tendency, while the randomness of the series at individual sites cannot be definitively concluded. All Kolmogorov complexity measures have relatively small values with the exception of the USGS (United States Geological Survey) 08088610 station at Graford, Texas, which exhibits the highest values of these complexity measures. This finding may be attributed to the elevated effect of human activities at Graford, and proportionally lesser effect at other stations. In addition, complexity tends to decrease downflow, meaning that larger catchments are generally less influenced by anthropogenic activity. The correction on randomness of Lyapunov time (quantifying predictability) is found to be inversely proportional to the Kolmogorov complexity, which strengthens our conclusion regarding the effect of anthropogenic activities, considering that KC and LT are distinct measures, based on rather different techniques

An Annotated Checklist of the Freshwater Fishes of Texas, with Keys to Identification of Species

Forty-five families and 247 species of fishes are known to inhabit the freshwaters of Texas. We report on the distribution and status of these fishes and provide a key to their identification. Of the native fishes originally found in Texas, five taxa, Notropis orca (phantom shiner), Notropis simus simus (Rio Grande bluntnose shiner), Cyprinella lutrensis blairi (Maravillas red shiner), Gambusia amistadensis (Amistad gambusia) and Gambusia georgei (San Marcos gambusia) are apparently extinct, and three, Oncorhynchus clarki virginalis (Rio Grande cutthroat trout), Hybognathus amarus (Rio Grande silvery minnow) and Gambusia senilis (blotched gambusia) appear to be extirpated from the state. More than 20 percent of the remaining primary freshwater species appear to be in some need of protection.Integrative Biolog

Year 1 report for ‘Conserving Texas Biodiversity: Status, Trends, and Conservation Planning for Fishes of Greatest Conservation Need’

State Wildlife Grant Program, grant TX T-106-1 (CFDA# 15.634), Contract No. 459125 UTA14-001402Substantive progress was made on all major Project Activities in this first year: Activity 1. Coordinate and Facilitate Science and Conservation Actions for Conserving Texas Biodiversity - We expanded and strengthened UT-TPWD coordination, transitioning the relationship between these partners into a much more collaborative one than was previously realized. The flow of data between TPWD and the Fishes of Texas Project (supported in part by this project) has become much more bi-directional. Many newly collected TPWD specimens, agency databases, legacy data products and reports, and feedback from resource managers are now beginning to contribute substantively to growth and diversity (now including non-specimen-vouchered records) of data served through the FoTX Project’s websites. Work on cleaning and normalizing of FoTX’s online specimen-vouchered database continued, and the updated FoTX occurrence and distribution data are being actively used. Most recently they were used by this project, together with expert (TPWD, UT and others’) opinions, to develop recommendations on conservation status of native fishes of Texas’ Species of Greatest Conservation Need for TPWD’s consideration in anticipated updates to the Texas Conservation Action Plan. Within two months of this report, a new and substantially larger and improved version of the FoTX website/database and related collection of images, field notes, and ancillary datasets, will be formally announced. Activity 2. Identify Priority Geographic Management Units for Conserving Fishes of Greatest Conservation Need - We used FoTX data in a systematic conservation area prioritization analysis to identify Native Fish Conservation Areas (NFCAs) for large portions of Texas where such comprehensive planning had not been previously carried out. Updated and new FoTX data for all Texas fish Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) were used in production of newly improved Species Distribution Models for input into this planning process, and the results of the planning exercise have already been integrated by TPWD into management prioritizations of both those species and the resultant NFCAs. Activity 3. Develop Monitoring and Conservation Plans for Native Fish Conservation Areas - Monitoring and conservation plans were delivered to TPWD for all NFCAs identified in Activity 2. Activity 4. Conduct Field-Based Surveys Detailed Biodiversity Assessments (i.e. Bioblitzing), and Citizen-Based Monitoring - Field surveys with detailed biodiversity assessments (“bioblitzes”) and citizen-based monitoring were conducted in three areas selected collaboratively by TPWD and FoTX Project staff from within the identified NFCAs: Nueces River headwaters, Big Cypress Bayou basin, and Village Creek basin. Along with this field effort, FoTX Project staff developed and circulated guidelines and best practices, and provided training for citizen-based monitoring that leverages iNaturalist for capture and reporting of photo-vouchered occurrence records in ways that will help assure scientifically useful data are obtained. All specimens acquired during these field efforts, and from many other routine specimen acquisitions from across the state (1845 total records/jars of specimens), were cataloged in the UT Fish Collection database. From there, these new records will soon be fed into GBIF, VertNet, FishNet2 and other major online data aggregators, including the online Fishes of Texas database.Texas Parks and Wildlife Department; U.S. Fish and Wildlife ServiceIntegrative Biolog