Let’s start thinking about water!

Assessing the complex influences of water management on hydrological drought characteristics in Texas

This paper is a bit about researching the obvious, namely that water management interventions reduce the impacts of hydrological drought. After all, that is what water management in Texas is mostly (all?) about. However, Yao and others seek to quantify the effect of these interventions. They did this by investigating 32 streamflow gauges on seven major rivers in Texas under natural and managed conditions (Brazos, Colorado, Neches, Nueces, Sabine, San Antonio, and Trinity). They found that water management reduced hydrologic drought across all seven rivers and at 81% of the gages. They also found that management increased the response time of hydrologic drought to meteorological drought by a median of 2.5 months (which doesn’t seem that long to me).

Climate justice implications of natech disasters—Excess contaminant releases during hurricanes on the Texas Gulf Coast

Major hurricanes cause major problems. Beyond the lives lost and the damage to and destruction of homes, major industries are also affected, often leading to the release of contaminants. Natech disasters (a new term for me) are natural-technological disasters in which natural hazards trigger technological accidents that result in contaminant releases. Berberian and colleagues gawked at contaminant releases during hurricanes Rita, Ike, and Harvey in Texas. The data shows that hurricanes cause two-to-three times more contaminant releases than during normal periods, with petrochemical refineries responsible for most air emission events. These releases tend to disproportionally affect Hispanics, renters, low-income folks, and rural folks.

The authors found a 10% to 15% increase in the likelihood of releases for each percent increase in Hispanic residents in downwind neighborhoods, indicating that many Hispanics live near industrial facilities. Air and water releases were also more likely to affect renters and low-income folks, although the percentage of Black residents was associated with a slightly lower likelihood. Denser populations were less likely to be affected than rural areas. Most contamination came from fixed sources.

Best management practices to mitigate contamination of karstic aquifers from emergency fire-control runoff

In ye olde days, firefighters fought fire with good ole H2O. These days, while water is still important in fighting fires, some fires are fought with chemical foams, which have advantages for certain fires. For example, pouring water on a ruptured lithium-ion battery is a really bad idea (search for videos on the interwebs). However, foams often contain chemicals that can harm environmental and human health. For example, many PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) have escaped to the environment and entered the water cycle.

In this paper, Rosen and amigos propose best management practices to mitigate contamination of karstic aquifers from emergency fire-control runoff. This is a companion to an earlier paper by Shindel and Rosen published in 2021, also in the Texas Water Journal. Karst, of course, is highly permeable, so contaminants enter and move rapidly in the subsurface. The authors suggest real-time evaluation during an event but also pre-screening and post-testing involving water quality sampling, runoff and groundwater flow modeling, nontoxic dye tracing, and related studies. Preventing entry into the aquifer is the first priority, so this work builds on the earlier works educating firefighters to understand the consequences of contam­ination and provide health officials with information to help mitigate human and environmental health risks.