Texas Environmental Flow Information Toolkit Literature Review and Meta-analysis

The Environmental Flow Information Toolkit (EFIT) is a decision support tool built by The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to aid in developing strategies for the protection and restoration of natural flow regimes and water levels in Texas aquatic systems. As apart of that effort, this data represents a comprehensive review and meta-analysis of the standing scientific literature on flow-ecology relationships in Texas and neighboring geographies along with reports from BBEST and the Texas Instream Flow Program (TIFP). We extracted all available flow-ecology values, including trend data, thresholds, before/after comparisons, and qualitative responses, yielding a total of ~ 27,000 observations.  In particular, efforts were focused on identifying environmental flow tresholds as targets for management of rivers and streams within Texas.  The data and collection effort is described in Lueders et al. (2025) cited below.

When using this data, please use the following citations:

McManamay, R.A., D. Le Bouille, K. Garrett, L. Roush, M. Lueders. 2025.  Texas Environmental Flow Information Toolkit LIterature Review and Metanalysis.  Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.14676240

Lueders, M.L, R.A. McManamay, D. Le Bouille, K. Garrett, L. Roush, S. Powers, D. Young, P. Bean, K. Mayes, R. Smith, J.F. Trungale. 2025. BBEST Practices: Intentional Efforts to Identify Elusive Flow-Ecology Thresholds. Ecological Indicators