Coastal Fisheries - Habitat Assessment Team

Acoustic Mapping Projects and Downloadable Data

Imagery Mapping Projects and Downloadable Data

The Habitat Assessment Team utilizes imagery available through the Texas Natural Resources Information Systems (TNRIS) to derive subtidal and intertidal habitat map products. In order to create habitat maps, aerial imagery must be acquired when turbidity is low and allows the bottom to be clearly visible. This can be a challenge when trying to use publicly available imagery, but there are several imagery sets that have sufficient water quality for subtidal mapping, including the 2018 NAIP, 2015 TOP, and 2009 TOP products (available on the TNRIS website). Currently, TPWD is finishing aerial imagery-derived maps of seagrass, oysters (subtidal and intertidal), salt marsh, shell beaches, and mangroves for Galveston Bay, Matagorda Bay, San Antonio Bay, and Aransas Bay (including the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve). These products will be available in 2021.

TPWD also collaborates with the University of Texas – Marine Science Institute and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for the Tier 2 seagrass monitoring effort, in which seagrass data (including species composition, percent cover, and canopy height) are collected annually at fixed stations across the coast. Visit www.texasseagrass.org for more information and for data download.

Oyster Restoration Downloadable Data

The Habitat Assessment Team coordinates oyster restoration for TPWD CF along the Texas coast. Oyster reefs provide habitat for fish and invertebrates, improve water quality, and stabilize sediments. They are also one of the most imperiled estuarine habitats, with 85% global loss. Oyster habitat loss can be due to storm damage, sedimentation, water quality degradation, or damage from harvest. Many of our Texas bays are “substrate limited” which means there may not be enough clean shell available for spat (baby oysters) to recruit to. This can occur when reefs are sedimented by storms, or when shell is removed via harvest.

Oyster habitats can often be restored by placing cultch (a clean, hard surface on which oyster spat can settle and grow). TPWD has worked closely with partners, including the Galveston Bay Foundation (GBF), the Coastal Conservation Association Texas (CCA), and the Nature Conservancy to restore over 450 acres of oyster habitat in Texas Bays since 2009.

In 2015, the 85th Legislature passed a law which required shellfish dealers to return cultch (the equivalent of 30% of the volume of oyster landings) back to Texas reefs, or pay a fee for TPWD to restore the equivalent amount. This has established a long term, large scale oyster restoration program across the coast. As of 2019, these efforts have resulted in over 10,500 cubic yards of cultch placed, or an equivalent of 26 acres of restoration with a 3” layer of shell.

Data on the location, extent, and method of TPWD oyster restoration is available for direct download using the following links: