These are the geographic boundaries for reaches evaluated as part of the Environmental Integrity Index and Austin Lakes Index . Scores can be found in tabular form: https://data.austintexas.gov/Environment/Watershed-Reach-Index-and-Problem-Scores/vk3r-6prc

The Interagency Ecological Program’s (IEP) Environmental Monitoring Program (EMP) was initiated in compliance with the Water Right Decision D-1379 (now mandated by Water Right Decision D-1641) and has monitored discrete water quality and nutrients in the upper San Francisco Estuary since 1975. The objectives of the EMP are to obtain consistent and accurate monthly data at established monitoring stations, provide and document information necessary to achieve compliance with salinity, flow, and dissolved oxygen standards, and to report this information for the purpose of management and conservation of the upper San Francisco Estuary. While the EMP also collects biological data, this dataset only includes the discrete water quality and nutrient data collected by the EMP from 1975-2021. Links to other EMP datasets can be found [here](https://emp-dwr.github.io/emp-website/qmd-files/website/general/data-links.html). Data is also accessible via the [Environmental Data Initiative](https://portal.edirepository.org/nis/mapbrowse?scope=edi&identifier=458&revision=12).

The Watershed Protection Department has been distributing engineering assessments and scientific reports using the text-driven Watershed Publications Search tool. [http://www.austintexas.gov/watershed_protection/publications/default.cfm] The idea is to extend that tool by providing geographic context. This dataset will change. Links to applications using the tool will be updated when they go live.

The digital segmented network based on watershed boundaries, ERF1-2, includes enhancements to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's River Reach File 1 (RF1) (USEPA, 1996; DeWald and others, 1985) to support national and regional-scale surface water-quality modeling. Alexander and others (1999) developed ERF1, which assessed the hydrologic integrity of the digital reach traces and calculated the mean water time-of-travel in river reaches and reservoirs. ERF1-2 serves as the foundation for SPARROW (Spatially Referenced Regressions (of nutrient transport) On Watershed) modeling. Within the context of a Geographic Information System, SPARROW estimates the proportion of watersheds in the conterminous U.S. with outflow concentrations of several nutrients, including total nitrogen and total phosphorus, (Smith, R.A., Schwarz, G.E., and Alexander, R.B., 1997). This version of the network expands on ERF1 (version 1.2; Alexander et al. 1999), and includes the incremental and total drainage area derived from 1-kilometer (km) elevation data for North America. Previous estimates of the water time-of-travel were recomputed for reaches with water- quality monitoring sites that included two reaches. The mean flow and velocity estimates for these split reaches are based on previous estimation methods (Alexander et al., 1999) and are unchanged in ERF1-2. Drainage area calculations provide data used to estimate the contribution of a given nutrient to the outflow. Data estimates depend on the accuracy of node connectivity. Reaches split at water- quality or pesticide-monitoring sites indicate the source point for estimating the contribution and transport of nutrients and their loads throughout the watersheds. The ERF1-2 coverage extends the earlier ERF1 coverage by providing digital-elevation-model (DEM-based estimates of reach drainage area founded on the 1-kilometer data for North America (Verdin, 1996; Verdin and Jenson, 1996). A 1-kilometer raster grid of ERF1-2 projected to Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area, NAD 27 Datum (Snyder, 1987), was merged with the HYDRO1K flow direction data set (Verdin and Jenson, 1996) to generate a DEM-based watershed grid, ERF1_2WS. The watershed boundaries are maintained in a raster (grid cell) format as well as a vector (polygon) format for subsequent model analysis. Both the coverage, ERF1-2, and the grid, ERF1-2WS are available at: http://water.usgs.gov/lookup/gisgetlist. The version of RF1 used to compile ERF1-2 was an early edition of a USGS RF1 translation and was updated by USEPA (USEPA, 1996). The capabilities of the enhanced version of RF1 (ERF1-2) and the current USEPA version have not been evaluated. The user is referred to the USEPA version. [http://www.epa.gov/owow/monitoring/rf/rfindex] for discussions of streamflow accuracy and general background on the origin of RF1.

The Environmental Quality Index (EQI) accounts for the multiple domains of the environment with which humans interact. These domains include chemical, natural, built, and sociodemographic environments that have both positive and negative influences on health. An overall EQI was created for census tracts within the contiguous United States for 2006-2010 and 2011-2015. Provided data sets include full EQI for 2006-2010 and 20011-2015, variables used to create the census tract EQI, as well as links to maps of the data.