7 of the TWDB’s top accomplishments in 2022 Posted on December 14, 2022

 
Water is a year-round priority at the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) that keeps our agency very busy, from financing new projects to addressing drought and flood concerns, planning for future water needs in our rapidly growing state, and more. As 2022 comes to a close, we’re looking back at the past year to highlight some of the agency’s top accomplishments.

1) Committed more than $114,000,000 from the Flood Infrastructure Fund
Through November, the TWDB has committed more than $114,000,000 from the Flood Infrastructure Fund in 2022 for flood control, flood mitigation, and drainage projects, bringing the total amount committed to $462,485,411 to date. Additionally, the TWDB has extended intent-to-apply letters to all 285 entities on the project prioritization list.

2) Began collecting bathymetric data for Texas rivers and bays
Bathymetry is a process that provides a three-dimensional map of features of underwater terrain for a range of uses, including navigation, coastal and ocean science, and hydrodynamic modeling. Bathymetric data can be used for hurricane storm surge modeling and coastal flood inundation, water planning and floodplain management, predicting tides and currents for oil spill response, and environmental flow and coastal resiliency studies.

3) Solicited projects for the Economically Distressed Areas Program for the first time since 2018
The Economically Distressed Areas Program was created in 1989 by the Texas Legislature to provide financial assistance for infrastructure projects in economically disadvantaged areas to address inadequate residential water or wastewater service. This year, 23 applications requesting $290,101,415 were considered eligible and prioritized based on criteria established by the TWDB.

4) Developed the Technical Assistance in Water Loss Control program
The Technical Assistance in Water Loss Control program will provide hands-on technical assistance to water utilities to improve how they assess and mitigate water loss. The program will focus on validating utilities’ water loss data and help in developing strategies to most efficiently mitigate for and reduce real and apparent water loss.

5) Collected water level measurements and water quality samples
The TWDB’s Groundwater Monitoring team traveled across the state to collect nearly 2,000 water level measurements and water quality samples to provide the public with information on Texas’ groundwater resources. This data will help inform decisions regarding aquifer productivity, designing new water supply wells, drought management, and more. 

6) Reviewed the first-ever draft regional flood plans
In 2019, the Texas Legislature greatly expanded the TWDB's role in flood planning through legislation to create Texas' first-ever regional and state flood planning process. A historic milestone was achieved for the new program in August when the TWDB received all 15 draft regional flood plans for review.

7) Developed new tools to assist customers and water supply planning groups
To help customers and water supply planning groups better understand and review key data products, the TWDB developed interactive online planning dashboards to review historic water use and draft water demand projections. These tools help facilitate and accelerate planning work in all 16 regions and increase the efficient use of grant resources.

This article is posted in Water Planning / Flood / Financial Assistance / Water Supply .