User Guide:

The Great Plains Environmental Flow Information Toolkit Hydrology Dashboard

Overview

Healthy river ecosystems support diverse assemblages of fish and wildlife. The natural hydrologic regimes that maintain these systems are increasingly imperiled due to several stressors including drought, groundwater pumping, surface water diversions, dam operations, impervious cover, and invasive species. Hydrologic alteration and riverscape fragmentation have led to declines in native fish communities and rivers and streams in the Great Plains of Texas have undergone detrimental environmental changes over time. Recent periods of drought in the Great Plains of Texas have highlighted the need to further investigate flow shortages and hydrologic alteration in relation to native fish communities.

To address and mitigate sources of hydrologic alteration, TPWD has developed the Environmental Flow Information Toolkit (EFIT) application. The (EFIT) is a series of interactive dashboards, analysis tools, data and publications designed to identify opportunity areas for streamflow restoration and protection. The Great Plains EFIT Hydrologic Dashboard is an interactive application designed to provide information to aid in the development of voluntary strategies to maintain and restore environmental flows in the Great Plains ecoregion using desktop hydrologic analyses and an interactive geospatial framework.

The purpose of the EFIT Hydrology Dashboard User Guide is to provide information regarding the appropriate use and functions of the dashboard. The guide describes the basic elements of the dashboard related to selection criteria, target flows, hydrologic alteration, flow deficits, surface water right information, and interactive map features.

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