Members of the Texas Water Resources Institute’s (TWRI) water team have published two new papers: Direct Mailing Education Campaign Impacts on the Adoption of Grazing Management Practices and Binational reflections on pathways to groundwater security in the Mexico–United States borderlands.
The paper, Direct Mailing Education Campaign Impacts on the Adoption of Grazing Management Practices, was published online in the Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education by TWRI’s Allen Berthold, Ph.D., Taylor Olsovsky and Michael Schramm.
The paper abstract explains that a common approach to address water quality impairments in Texas is to develop and implement watershed protection plans, where a key management measure is to increase the adoption of best management practices through existing government programs that provide technical and financial assistance.
According to the authors, a key role for watershed managers during the implementation phase is to raise awareness that technical and financial resources are available to assist producers with the adoption of best management practices.
From the start, the team’s outreach approaches included in-person education programs, attendance at local soil and water conservation district (SWCD) meetings, newsletters and other efforts that have had minimal reach. As a result, the team initiated a mass mailing campaign where 4,921 landowners within Lavaca County, Texas were contacted four times in approximately six months with the same message.
The project results suggest that directly mailing educational materials to landowners is an effective outreach approach to increase the adoption of best management practices. Model results indicate a significant 300% increase in adoption of practices compared to historic levels.
To learn more, read the full document.
The other new paper, Binational reflections on pathways to groundwater security in the Mexico–United States borderlands, published online in Water International by TWRI’s Rosario Sanchez, Ph.D., and Laura Rodriquez, with José Agustin Breña-Naranjo, Alfonso Rivera, Randall T. Hanson, Antonio Hernández-Espriú, Rick J. Hogeboom, Anita Milman, Jude A. Benavides, Adrian Pedrozo-Acuña, Julio Cesar Soriano-Monzalvo, Sharon B. Megdal and Gabriel Eckstein.
The paper abstract explains that shared groundwater resources between Mexico and the United States are facing unprecedented stressors.
The authors reflected on how to improve water security for groundwater systems in the border region, beginning with the state of groundwater knowledge and the challenges groundwater resources face from a physical, societal and institutional perspective.
The authors concluded that the extent of ongoing cooperation frameworks and joint and remaining research efforts, from which alternative strategies can emerge, still need to be developed. The way forward, the authors said, offers a variety of cooperation models as the future offers rather complex, shared and multidisciplinary water challenges to the Mexico-U.S. borderlands.
To learn more, read the full document.