Adaptation, transfer and adoption of new technologies to increase the resilience of karst aquifer water supplies

The Edwards aquifer’s water supply has driven development of the rich agricultural lands and rural economies in South-Central Texas. But the region’s surface water runs off a porous karst watershed and then deep into an aquifer that is at risk of catastrophic contamination from fire-fighting in response to wildfire at the wildland-urban interface and to windstorm, flash flooding, lightning, arson, and terrorism throughout the aquifer’s vulnerable zones. The threat to water supplies, public health, and local economies is so great that the Texas Legislature recently man-dated development of means and methods to protect water quality during disaster-related fire operations.
The goal of the project is to increase the resilience of karst aquifer water supplies to disaster-related firefighting in agricultural and rural areas through adaptation, transfer, and adoption (including measurement and quantification for verification) of new technologies and innovative approaches to protect the aquifer from contamination during emergency response in the Edwards aquifer region of South-Central Texas.
This project addresses two of the key NRCS CIG Priorities for 2021. The primary one is Improvements to Water Quality in rural agricultural areas, which will be achieved by the secondary priority of reducing the impact of Wildfire Hazard, including from Biomass Accumulation at the Wildland-Urban Interface to agricultural areas along the vulnerable Edwards aquifer re-charge zone in South-Central Texas.