A water budget is an accounting of hydrologic components of the water cycle, transfers between the components, and their relative contributions within a water system. Water budgets help define how much water is available, how much water is used, where the water comes from, and at what rate water is replenished or consumed. In its simplest form, a water budget defines the amount of water entering and leaving a water system. The USGS Oklahoma-Texas Water Science Center (OTWSC) provides data and information about water-budget components that are needed to manage water resources in Texas. Visit the links below for more information on our data and science.
Basic components of water budgets are precipitation, evapotranspiration, surface-water and groundwater flow into and out of the watershed or aquifer, change in surface-water and groundwater storage, and human withdrawals and interbasin transfers.
WATER BUDGET SCIENCE CAPABILITIES
OTWSC has expertise in water budget science applications, including, but not limited to:
- Modeling analysis to estimate water-budget components under different climate and water-use scenarios
- Quanitifying potential changes in hydrologic budgets due to vegetative land-cover changes at a watershed scale.
- Estimating groundwater recharge using statistical regression techniques
- Monitoring evapotranspiration rates to evaluate how changes in land cover and soil moisture content may change water budgets
- Determining groundwater sources, recharge, discharge, and mixing zones
- Collecting streamflow data.
CURRENT WATER BUDGET SCIENCE
Coastal Lowlands Regional Groundwater Availability Study (CLAS)
Evapotranspiration Monitoring at Huisache Removal Site
Hydrogeologic Atlas for Fort Bliss
Hydrogeologic Framework of Gaines, Terry, and Yoakum Counties
Hydrologic Monitoring of Medina and Diversion Lakes, San Antonio Area
Projects related to water budgets are listed below.
Upper Rio Grande Basin Focus Area Study
Red River Focus Area Study
Hydrologic Monitoring of Medina and Diversion Lakes, San Antonio Area
Hydrogeologic Framework and Geochemistry of Gaines, Terry, and Yoakum Counties
Hydrogeologic Atlas for Fort Bliss
Effects of Huisache Removal on Evapotranspiration
Coastal Lowlands Regional Groundwater Availability Study
- Overview
A water budget is an accounting of hydrologic components of the water cycle, transfers between the components, and their relative contributions within a water system. Water budgets help define how much water is available, how much water is used, where the water comes from, and at what rate water is replenished or consumed. In its simplest form, a water budget defines the amount of water entering and leaving a water system. The USGS Oklahoma-Texas Water Science Center (OTWSC) provides data and information about water-budget components that are needed to manage water resources in Texas. Visit the links below for more information on our data and science.
Basic components of water budgets are precipitation, evapotranspiration, surface-water and groundwater flow into and out of the watershed or aquifer, change in surface-water and groundwater storage, and human withdrawals and interbasin transfers.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.WATER BUDGET SCIENCE CAPABILITIES
OTWSC has expertise in water budget science applications, including, but not limited to:
- Modeling analysis to estimate water-budget components under different climate and water-use scenarios
- Quanitifying potential changes in hydrologic budgets due to vegetative land-cover changes at a watershed scale.
- Estimating groundwater recharge using statistical regression techniques
- Monitoring evapotranspiration rates to evaluate how changes in land cover and soil moisture content may change water budgets
- Determining groundwater sources, recharge, discharge, and mixing zones
- Collecting streamflow data.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.Servicing the evapotranspiration station at the huisache removal site, Texas. (Public domain.) CURRENT WATER BUDGET SCIENCE
Coastal Lowlands Regional Groundwater Availability Study (CLAS)
Evapotranspiration Monitoring at Huisache Removal Site
Hydrogeologic Atlas for Fort Bliss
Hydrogeologic Framework of Gaines, Terry, and Yoakum Counties
Hydrologic Monitoring of Medina and Diversion Lakes, San Antonio Area
- Science
Projects related to water budgets are listed below.
Upper Rio Grande Basin Focus Area Study
USGS is undertaking a 3-year study of water use, availability, and change in the Upper Rio Grande Basin in one of several national “Focus Area Studies” in the Department of Interior’s WaterSMART initiative. The Upper Rio Grande study area runs 670 miles from its headwaters in Colorado through New Mexico and northern Mexico to Ft. Quitman, Texas. Along its river corridor, it is a primary source of...Red River Focus Area Study
The USGS is undertaking a 3-year study of water use, availability, and change in the Red River basin in one of several national “Focus Area Studies” in the Department of Interior’s WaterSMART initiative . The Red River basin covers more than 93,000 square miles in New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana with a population of about 4.3 million people. Water resources in the basin are...Hydrologic Monitoring of Medina and Diversion Lakes, San Antonio Area
In 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the San Antonio Water System, began a study to refine previously derived estimates of groundwater outflows from Medina and Diversion Lakes in south-central Texas near San Antonio.Hydrogeologic Framework and Geochemistry of Gaines, Terry, and Yoakum Counties
In 2014, USGS, in cooperation with Llano Estacado Underground Water Conservation District, Sandy Land Underground Water District, and South Plains Underground Water Conservation District, began a multiphase project to develop a regional conceptual model of the hydrogeologic framework and geochemistry of the Ogallala, Edwards-Trinity, and Dockum aquifers. The Ogallala aquifer is the shallowest...Hydrogeologic Atlas for Fort Bliss
Successful long term stewardship of Fort Bliss lands includes managing traditional hydrologic resources such as surface water and groundwater resources and increasingly, geologic resources such as geothermal reservoirs and deep well injection locations. The USGS Texas Water Science Center is developing a garrison-wide hydrogeologic atlas that describes the hydrology and hydrogeology of Fort Bliss...Effects of Huisache Removal on Evapotranspiration
USGS Texas Water Science Center scientists are evaluating potential changes in the hydrologic budget, specifically evapotranspiration, as a result of brush management (applied to huisache) as a conservation practice.Coastal Lowlands Regional Groundwater Availability Study
USGS is undertaking a 5-year study to assess groundwater availability for the aquifers proximal to the Gulf of Mexico from the Texas-Mexico border through the panhandle of Florida, known as the Coastal Lowlands Aquifer System (CLAS). This study is one of several within the Regional Groundwater Availability Studies of the USGS Water Availability and Use Science Program. - Data
- Publications