Texas Water Observatory
Water-Energy-Carbon Cycle
Agriculture & Environmental Health
Weather & Climate Forecast
About
Texas Water Observatory (TWO) is a river basin scale distributed facility in operation since 2017 for monitoring and investigating coupled water, energy, and carbon stores and fluxes at various space and time scales within the Gulf Coast Plains region. The Gulf Coast region in the South-Central Plains of Texas is a unique natural laboratory characterized by meandering rivers oriented orthogonally to aquifer recharge zones, and cascading watersheds with different land covers subjected to exceptional climatic variations within relatively short time and space windows. TWO is developed to better understand hydrologic flow across natural and manmade reservoirs in this critical zone. The network monitors and measures groundwater, soil water, surface water, and atmospheric water at multiple locations across space and through time. Using advanced observational platforms and near real time sensors, this observatory monitors high frequency data of water stores and fluxes, critical for understanding and modeling water resources and their sustainability in the state of Texas and Southern USA.
TWO is positioned to support high-impact water science which is highly relevant to societal needs. TWO is a regional resource for better understanding and managing agriculture, water resources, ecosystems, biodiversity, disasters, health, energy, and weather/climate. TWO infrastructure spans land uses (cultivation agriculture, range/pasture, forest), landforms (low-relief erosional uplands to depositional lowlands), and across climatic and geological gradients of Texas to investigate the sensitivity and resilience of fertile soils and the ecosystems they support. TWO facilitates a new generation of interdisciplinary water professionals, from various TAMU Colleges, that are better positioned for attending to future water challenges of the region.
Message from Director
Water availability and quality and their effects on humankind are among the greatest challenges for the United States in general and Texas in particular. Variability in the precipitation and drought patterns throughout the southwest United States, combined with increasing water demand continue to have significant social, political, economic, and environmental impact on the 50 million people who live in Texas and the other Gulf states. A greater understanding of the water availability, storage, usage, and quality, in both space and time, is critical for ensuring a sustainable future for the citizens of Texas.
Funded by Texas A&M University in 2015, Texas Water Observatory (TWO) is a long-term (10+ years) collaborative effort among a multi-disciplinary team of scientists from College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (COALS), College of Geosciences (GEO), and College of Engineering (COE), with the expectation to grow to other Texas A&M colleges, and other major universities in Texas and surrounding states. The observatory is the first of its kind in Texas and is located in South-Central Texas along the Brazos River corridor across a mosaic of land uses (cultivation agriculture, range/pasture, native prairie, forest, salt marsh) and landforms (low-relief erosional uplands to depositional lowlands), and across climatic and geologic gradients. Central to the TWO effort is near-real time monitoring, assimilating, modeling, and disseminating a variety of data such as hydrology, climate/weather, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, ground water level, stream flow, ecosystem indicators, water quality, and water use/availability to understand the linked (blue and green) water cycle and provide various scenarios as tools for researchers, students, natural resource managers, water users, and decision makers alike.
TWO's infrastructure is designed to serve as a regional resource for better understanding and/or managing:
Agriculture - Drought Monitoring, Irrigation Planning, Root Zone Soil Moisture Status, Land and Crop Management, Evapotranspiration Dynamics, Water-Energy-Food Nexus, Water Quality
Water Resources - Water Availability, Streamflow, Surface Water Store, Soil Water Store, Ground Water Store, Water Withdrawals, Water Infrastructure Planning
Ecosystems - Water and Ecosystem Services, Flood and Drought Impacts, Aquatic Habitat in Drought Conditions, Wetlands and Lakes
Biodiversity - Water Stress and Impacts in Biota, Water Infrastructure and Biodiversity, Gradients across Urban and Rural Corridor
Disasters - Flood, Drought, Soil Erosion and Sedimentation, Land Degradation, Adaption to Climate Variation
Health - Water Quality, Effect of Flood and Drought, Availability of Potable Water
Energy - Water for (Hydropower, Cooling Power Plant, Fracking Shale Gas, Biofuel Production)
Weather and Climate - Improved Regional Modeling and Forecast for Precipitation, Temperature, Humidity, and Extreme Events
Besides developing a network of field water observatory infrastructure for accounting water flow and storage, TWO facilitates the development of a new generation interdisciplinary water professionals (from various TAMU Colleges and its partnering institutes) with better understanding and skills for attending to future water challenges of the region. A detailed explanation and accompanying three years (2018-2020) can be found in our paper.
Please feel free to contact us (bmohanty@tamu.edu) for collaborations, partnerships and access to a full spectrum of raw datasets.I invite you to visit the TWO website and its various features to explore available infrastructure and sample databases. Together we can grow to attend future challenges related to water in Texas and beyond! Thank You.
