Trends in freshwater inflows to Galveston Bay

The health of Galveston Bay is largely defined by the volume, timing, and quality of freshwater inflows into the bay from surrounding drainage basins. From 1941 to 1987, freshwater inflows to Galveston Bay, defined here as the sum of terrestrial inflows into Galveston Bay, Trinity Bay, East Bay, and West Bay, averaged roughly 10.1 million acre-feet (ac-ft) per year. Of all the contributing basins, the Trinity River basin by far contributes the largest volume of freshwater (54%) to Galveston Bay, followed by the San Jacinto River basin (28%), the San Jacinto-Brazos coastal basin (10%), the Neches-Trinity coastal basin (6%), and finally the Trinity-San Jacinto coastal basin (2%).