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Thomas Neeson

Water resource managers face the complex challenge of balancing water allocation between human and environmental needs. Declining water availability in many regions globally is driven by over- allocation and usage by municipal and agricultural users and climate-driven changes in rainfall. At the same time, environmental flows in rivers and streams that sustain fish and other aquatic life are decreasing for the same reasons. Because freshwater species’ populations are declining rapidly, it is increasingly important to balance between human and environmental water needs. However, there are significant barriers and socio-political issues that prevent water from being allocated to conserve freshwater ecosystems. This...
An optimization model (i.e., decision support model) identifies the set of water conservation projects that will deliver the greatest progress towards restoring natural flow regimes for a given budget (the “biggest bang for the buck”). The locations of potential investments in our model corresponds to each of the existing water permit locations in the basin; at each location, the potential projects that might be completed will include all feasible water conservation strategies (e.g., both voluntary incentive-based programs and water rights acquisition).
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Evaluating the Impacts of Potential Wastewater Reuse on Streams in the Red River Basin of Oklahoma
Increasing water usage and demands, combined with potentially less source water as a result of climate change impacts, are causing water resource managers to evaluate and implement alternative solutions for reducing water shortages, maximizing water availability, and reducing costs. The capture and reuse of wastewater is a promising strategy for increasing available water, but the costs and benefits of wastewater reuse are poorly quantified. In many locations, wastewater forms a significant component of stream flows for downstream beneficial uses. While wastewater reuse can boost local water availability, it also may reduce downstream flows and have negative impacts on downstream ecosystems. Therefore, assessing...
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Enhancing a Spatial Planning Tool to Inform Management of Reservoir Fisheries, Stream Flows, and Societal Water Needs in the Red River
Ensuring the long-term sustainability of water resources requires careful stewardship of water for societal uses (i.e. municipal, agricultural, and industrial sectors) and also for the many other benefits that aquatic ecosystems provide to humans. In particular, reservoir fisheries and river ecosystems provide a range of economic, cultural, and recreational benefits. Maximizing the benefits that we receive from water will entail balancing societal uses, reservoir storage, and river flows. Climate change is expected to complicate the challenge of finding a balance among these three dimensions of water sustainability. To navigate these challenges, stakeholders need frameworks for simultaneously predicting the...
The Red River Basin is a vital source of water in the South Central U.S., supporting ecosystems, drinking water, agriculture, tourism and recreation, and cultural ceremonies. Stretching from the High Plains of New Mexico eastward to the Mississippi River, the Red River Basin encompasses parts of five states – New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. In the Red River Basin, resource managers face the challenge of allocating scarce water resources among competing uses, but they lack a systematic framework for comparing the costs and benefits of proposed water management decisions and conservation actions. In 2016, researchers worked with the Great Plains LCC to develop a decision support model for identifying...
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