Watershed Master Plan Viewer
The Watershed Master Plan Viewer displays data produced in the various Watershed Master Plan reports, as well as other useful reference data. It is intended to be used as a visualization tool to assist the public, stakeholders, and decision-makers in understanding both watershed issues and potential solutions. Explore the your watershed below:
Click image to access the Wateshed Master Plan Viewer
How to Manage a Watershed
A watershed is all of the land area that drains water to a common point, usually a river, stream or lake. Implementing appropriate watershed management techniques is important to sustaining and enriching life in the San Antonio River Watershed. By striking a balance between the physical, chemical, biological and economic components of the watershed the BRWM partners helps the San Antonio River Authority establish and maintain the integrity of the watersheds throughout Bexar County and beyond.
Watershed Master Planning
With input from the BRMW partners, the San Antonio River Authority utilizes a watershed management approach to create holistic watershed master plans by individual watershed (i.e. sub-watersheds within the whole of the San Antonio River Watershed). This is done to respect the differences in land characteristics, while achieving similar goals. The watershed management approach is an ongoing cycle.
- Planning: Determine the watershed unit and issues to be studied and identify the stakeholders and resource personnel;
- Data Collection: Collect routine water quality and quantity data at specific locations;
- Assessment and Targeting: Compare current water quality to state and federal standards or establish desired future conditions;
- Strategy Development: Develop goals and strategies to maintain or achieve water quality standards and meet future demands; and
- Implementation: Implement goals and strategies through public policy, best management practices (BMPs) and education. SARA will measure progress to make sure the implementation is results oriented.
The Watershed Master Plans, developed with the watershed management approach identified above, take existing knowledge and utilize new computer modeling and decision matrices to develop infrastructure and best management practices (BMP) recommendations.
What are the Watershed Master Plans used for?
Watershed Master Plans inform recommendations, help educate the public and influence decision makers regarding land use changes, investment in capital projects and modifications to development regulations within the basin. As the regional technical planning lead in watershed management, the San Antonio River Authority has made significant investments in collecting and maintaining watershed data and developing complex analytical tools and models to make scientifically sound watershed management recommendations. The San Antonio River Authority and the BRWM partners are committed to maintaining and updating the Watershed Master Plans to reflect continual changes in land uses, and to capture improvements in available data.