High Water Marks for Texas

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TNRIS' Floodplain Mapping Group has established an email address (highwatermarks@tnris.org) for people to send pictures, text and regular email to update the current inventory of high water marks in Texas. A high water mark is the line left by extreme high flows or levels of water from floods. These are also referred to as debris lines in some cases and show how high the water rose relative to the surrounding land.

These marks provide unique insight into the dynamics of a flood and are of great value to engineers, who in the the aftermath of an event, can use these lines to calibrate their models and understand the extent and intensity of a flood.

Some people even have extensive histories of high water marks carved into homes, barns, trees etc. complete with dates of the flood. These are extremely helpful in providing modern day understanding of historical events and also provide keys to understanding the history of a place. It is very common for folks to proclaim "It never floods here!" when in reality there has been and could very well be a future flood.

This is the people side of flooding and the power that stories play in communication of the past as a measure of the risk in the present. Next time you are out traveling along a river, or find high water marks on an old building take a picture and send it to us!

We are hopeful more and more people will use their smart phone with geotagging or a camera and GPS to capture these lines and marks to send to highwatermarks@tnris.org so we can expand awareness of Texas' map of historical floods.

A highwater mark inventory for Texas can be found at: http://www.tnris.org/status-maps and click on the Floodplain Mapping tab.

Texas Water Treatment Plant at Max Starcke Park, Seguin (April 2011)
Photo credit: TNRIS