The Texas Water Development Board is an agency of the

government of Texas The government of Texas operates under the Constitution of Texas and consists of a Unitary state, unitary Democracy, democratic U.S. state, state government operating under a presidential system that uses the Dillon Rule, as well as governments at ...

with authority over water development in the state. The Board appoints directors for regional water development agencies such as the

Lower Neches Valley Authority The Lower Neches Valley Authority was established in 1933 by the state legislature as a district to store, control, conserve, and utilize the water of the lower Neches River valley in Texas. The LNVA, the second river district created by the state ...

. In the 2007 Texas constitutional amendment election, Proposition 16 on the ballot passed with more than 60% of the vote, allowing the board to issue up to $250 million in bonds to find its operations.

Texas Geographic Information Office

The Texas Geographic Information Office (TxGIO) is a division of the Texas Water Development Board that maintains the

geographic information system A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and Geographic information system software, software that store, manage, Spatial analysis, analyze, edit, output, and Cartographic design, visualize Geographic data ...

(GIS) of the

. It serves as the principal archive for natural resources data in the state. The Texas Geographic Information Officer servers as the director of TxGIO and also coordinates the Texas Geographic Names Committee.

History

TxGIO was established by the Texas Legislature in 1968 as the Texas Water-Oriented Data Bank. In 1972, after four years of growth and diversification, it was renamed the Texas Natural Resources Information System (TNRIS). In 2023, the 88th Texas Legislature officially renamed TNRIS to the Texas Geographic Information Office.

Services

The mission of TxGIO is to provide a "centralized information system incorporating all Texas natural resource data, socioeconomic data related to natural resources, and indexes related to that data that are collected by state agencies or other entities." (Texas Water Code, 16.021). TxGIO provides a central access point for Texas Natural Resources data, census data, digital and paper maps, and information about datasets collected by state agencies and other organizations. It publishes historical and current aerial photography and printed

topographic map In modern mapping, a topographic map or topographic sheet is a type of map characterized by large- scale detail and quantitative representation of relief features, usually using contour lines (connecting points of equal elevation), but histori ...

s from the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on Mar ...

as part of its

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

data warehouse. It also provides GIS educational services. The TxGIO offices are located in the Stephen F. Austin Building, 1700 North Congress Avenue, in

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

References

External links

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Texas Water Development Board
{{Authority control Government of Texas