To Understand the Socio-Economic Drivers of Impaired Water in Texas

In July 2020 an article was published on the potential economic impacts of nutrient related pollutants in Texas surface waters – a project supported by The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation (Kuwayama et al. 2020). The authors suggested that future research should focus on why water quality improvements have stagnated in Texas, including the socio-economic drivers. This work proposes to pick up on that recommendation and examine socio-economic, policy, and management drivers for the stagnation.

This larger project will be conducted in two distinct phases. The first phase — which this proposal will cover — will develop the methodology, create the linkages, and build a GIS visualization of the likely socio-economic drivers (e.g. land use-land cover changes; economic sectors/size in the basins; population and other demographic data, etc.) that are connected to water quality parameters in the case study watersheds (San Antonio-Guadalupe and Nueces-Rio Grande) and associated bay systems (San Antonio and Baffin) through a co-production process that involves partners and stakeholders. Phase II will build out to remaining basins.