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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Oct 1.
Published in final edited form as: Environ Manage. 2019 Sep 13;64(4):381–390. doi: 10.1007/s00267-019-01204-4

A Spatial Analysis of Possible Environmental Exposures in Recreational Areas Impacted by Hurricane Harvey Flooding, Harris County, Texas

Ibraheem Karaye 1, Kahler W Stone 2, Gaston A Casillas 3, Galen Newman 4, Jennifer A Horney 5,1,✉
PMCID: PMC6790291  NIHMSID: NIHMS1539774  PMID: 31515572

Abstract

Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast in August 2017 causing catastrophic flooding. Harris County is highly vulnerable to flooding, which is controlled in part by a system of bayous that include parks and trails. The petro-chemical industry, as well as thousands of documented sources of environmental pollution make recreational areas susceptible to environmental contamination during flood events. Recreational areas and toxic exposure sources were geocoded by sub-watershed boundaries and overlaid with the area of Hurricane Harvey inundation. A total of 121 of 349 (36.78%) parks were flooded; 102 of 121 (84.30%) were located in sub-watersheds with at least one exposure source. A total of 337 exposure sources (6 Superfund, 32 municipal solid waste, and 299 petroleum storage tanks) in 30 sub-watersheds were flooded. Though parks provide flood mitigation and other post-disaster benefits, their susceptibility to environmental contamination should be considered, especially in areas with a large number of toxic exposure sources.

Keywords: Hurricane Harvey, parks, GIS, flooding, environmental exposure

Introduction

Flooding is the world’s most common natural disaster (CRED 2018). Although the health impacts of flooding are specific to the location and the intensity of the flood event, the impacts on human health can include both short- and medium-term morbidity and mortality such as drowning, injuries, animal bites, and communicable diseases, as well as longer-term outcomes such as chronic diseases and mental health sequelae (M. Ahern et al. 2005; Du et al. 2010; Alderman, Turner, and Tong 2012). Domestic or occupational environmental contamination associated with flooding has been linked with adverse health outcomes like dermatitis, abdominal pain, and osteomalacia through post-disaster epidemiologic studies conducted in areas that are heavily industrialized or in close proximity to agricultural runoff (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 1993; Euripidou and Murray 2004; Vardoulakis et al. 2015). Disproportionate exposure to chemical hazards mobilized by flooding has also been shown in environmental justice neighborhoods (Bodenreider et al. 2019; Chakraborty, Collins, and Grineski 2019).

Under current projections, the combined effects of changing patterns of storm surge and tropical cyclone-associated precipitation, inland precipitation, and sea-level rise will increase both the frequency and intensity of flooding (Thornes 2002; Milly et al. 2002; Berke at al., 2015), particularly along the Texas Gulf Coast (Ray et al. 2011; Tebaldi, Strauss, and Zervas 2012; Zhu, Frauenfeld, and Quiring 2013; Atkinson John, McKee Smith Jane, and Bender Christopher 2013; Zhu et al. 2015). Harris County and the City of Houston (Figure 1) have already been impacted by several major flooding events in the last 20 years, including Tropical Storm Allison (2001), Hurricanes Rita (2005) and Ike (2008), and major flooding events on Memorial Day in 2015 and on Tax Day (April 15) in 2016 (Yan and Lavandera 2016). Most recently, Houston and Harris County were heavily impacted by flooding associated with Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm on August 26, 2017. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), up to 56 inches of rain fell over the Houston Metropolitan Area, making Hurricane Harvey the wettest tropical cyclone on record and inundating 70% of the City of Houston at a level of at least 18 inches (Di Liberto 2017).

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

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Houston Metropolitan Area by counties and population, Texas.

The risk of catastrophic flooding in the Houston-Galveston region is increased in part due to a projected growth in population of 3.5 million people in the next 25 years (Reja et al. 2017). With population growth comes new homes, businesses, roadways, parking lots, and sidewalks, producing billions of square feet of new impervious surface area. Simultaneously, new stormwater drainage infrastructure that will alter natural drainage patterns will accompany this growth. Conventional stormwater management includes facilities such as concrete-lined detention ponds and underground engineered infrastructure (Newman et al., 2016). The economic costs to handle such projected growth using only engineered infrastructure have driven regional and local planners to integrate natural features into new low impact development (LID) in ways that reduce infrastructure costs, improve stormwater storage capabilities, and improve water quality. While there is growing interest in LID throughout the Houston-Galveston region, there are still barriers to its broader acceptance, such as lack of public awareness, misperceptions, and a lack of zoning that has resulted in local development codes that do not address land use (Walsh 2018).

Flooding in Houston and Harris County is controlled in part by a widespread network of nearly two dozen major creeks and bayous that are classified into 22 major watersheds that drain into Galveston Bay (HCFCD 2018a). The Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) has divided each watershed into sub-watersheds based on the predominant waterway, allowing for a more detailed assessment of water quality and potential pollution issues for each sub-watershed (H-GAC 2018). Harris County’s floodplain parks and greenways are designed as a green infrastructure system to supplement this networks of waterways. They provide multiple functions to Houston residents, including sustainable ecosystem services, areas for recreation, and flood control (J. Ahern 2011). Green infrastructure can help mitigate flood risk through reduction and slowing down of stormwater discharges primarily through trees and vegetation (OW US EPA 2015; Newman et al., 2014). In addition to flood mitigation, green infrastructure may provide other benefits to communities, including areas for physical activities, outdoor enrichment for children, and improved air quality (OW US EPA 2015; Ulrich and Addoms 1981; Godbey and Mowen 2010).

Houston and Harris County are also home to a large number of industrial, petro-chemical, and legacy environmental contamination sites. The largest coastal refining center in the U.S. is located along the coastline of the Houston Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) (USEIA 2018), along with 42% of the nation’s petrochemical manufacturing capacity, which includes 92 petroleum, 535 chemical, and 223 plastic manufacturing facilities (Greater Houston Partnership 2016). Harris County has a total of 2,094 petroleum storage tanks (PSTs), 165 municipal solid waste sites (MSWs), 27 landfills, and 25 Superfund sites (SFS) of varying status (TCEQ 2018b). The location of many of these potential sources of environmental pollution are in areas that are at high risk of flooding, which means that contaminants can potentially be redistributed from hazardous sites as flooding is being mitigated through the City and County’s green spaces (Knap and Rusyn 2016). This makes residents of Houston and Harris County that use floodplain parks highly susceptible to exposure to environmental pollution resulting from the dissemination of these contaminants during flooding.

As a result of Hurricane Harvey-associated precipitation and subsequent flooding, PSTs in the Houston MSA spilled over a million gallons of hazardous chemicals into the environment (Blum 2017a; Kirby 2017). According to the New York Times, 14 superfund sites in Texas were flooded, 4 of which were in Harris County (Griggs et al. 2017). Two PSTs were damaged in the Houston Ship Channel, releasing over 500,000 gallons of gasoline, the largest spill associated with Harvey (Blum 2017b). Much of this spill flowed into Galena Park, a neighborhood located on Houston’s East End, adjacent to the Houston Ship Channel and the San Jacinto River. More than 6.3 million gallons of fuel in tanks were tipped over in Kinder Morgan’s Pasadena Terminal by rainfall.

Amendments to both the U.S. Clean Air and Clean Water Acts (OA US EPA 2013) have encouraged local-, regional-, and state-level planning authorities to increasingly rely on parks and recreation areas to create healthy, sustainable urban environments. Houston and Harris County, through public-private partnerships, have developed a series of greenways and flood management zones (Hung and Aquino 2013). This system uses multiple elements of green infrastructure to reduce the impact of flooding (HCFCD 2018b). For example, in a typical year Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) plants 12,000 to 15,000 trees to reduce stormwater runoff and improve water quality. Urban areas with fewer trees have the potential for increased stormwater, which may bring more pollutants and chemicals to areas with a higher proportion of impervious surfaces (Schueler and Wright 2006; Center for Watershed Protection 2017). The efforts of Harris County and Houston to develop a large network of bayous and tributaries specifically designed to mitigate flooding in the area are laudable. Green spaces within and adjacent to these flood mitigation bayous can assist in flood mitigation and provide space for recreational activities as long as park spaces are maintained (HCFCD 2018b). However, in a city like Houston, with a concentration of industrial and petrochemical sites, the possibility of residents’ exposure to environmental contaminants associated with flooding should be of concern because the original and main purpose of the green space around Houston’s Bayous was for flood mitigation, not recreation. When large flooding events, such as Hurricane Harvey, flood green spaces in Houston, there is a chance for residents to be exposed to harmful chemicals and other products that are redistributed due to flooding; for example, after Hurricane Harvey floodwaters receded, up to six feet of sediment was left in many parks (Houston Chronicle 2017; KPRC 2017). Parks flooded after a disaster are typically utilized by residents soon after flood water subsides, due to their community benefits and the role that they may in the disaster recovery processes (Rung et al. 2010).

In this study, we explored the geographic distribution of parks, potential environmental contamination sources, and flood inundation in Houston and Harris County, Texas following Hurricane Harvey. We sought to determine if flooded parks in Harris County could pose a potential exposure risk to users due to toxin transfer following Hurricane Harvey. We determined which parks share common watersheds with exposure sources and therefore could become contaminated through the environmental mobilization of contaminants in both water and sediments. Alternatively, the extensive flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey’s unprecedented 33 trillion gallons of precipitation could have washed many contaminants into Galveston Bay, which saw sharp decreases in salinity after Harvey (Du and Park 2019). However, the potential risks of exposure to these contaminants in a storm characterized by inland precipitation rather than storm surge should be better understood to protect the health of residents coming into contact with water and sediments after flood disasters.

Materials and Methods

Data Sources

The locations of parks and natural areas in Harris County were obtained from the H-GAC website (H-GAC 2018). Parks were included in this study if they were labeled as a park or trail in the dataset. Golf courses and schools were excluded, as were locations that did not have a label or were listed as “unknown.” Parks and natural areas without a label or listed as unknown made up about 25% of approximately 2,000 parks and natural areas listed. A quality check of unlabeled/unknown excluded areas showed that they were primarily open fields. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) provides spatial data on toxic exposure sources in Texas on their website (TCEQ 2018a). We utilized the land exposure component of this data, including PSTs, MSWs, and SFS. Watershed and sub-watershed – topographic areas that drain to a designated stream, river, or lake, in this case, the Houston Ship Channel and Galveston Bay – boundaries were obtained from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) website (USGS 2018). Finally, Hurricane Harvey inundation boundaries were accessed from the Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) using ArcGIS Online (HCFCD 2018c).

Spatial Analysis and Exposure Criteria

We used a Lambert Conformal Conic projection for Texas (specifically the State Plane Coordinate System 2403) for this research. This was necessary because the East-West axis of the State of Texas is relatively larger than its North-South axis. All datasets were clipped to the Harris County scale. All geospatial analyses were performed in ArcMap by ESRI (10.4, Redlands, CA). Recreational parks and potential exposure sources were spatially joined to their corresponding sub-watershed for analysis. The Hurricane Harvey inundation layer was overlaid with existing datasets to determine flood status for parks and potential exposure sources. For a park to be considered exposed, it had to have been flooded after Hurricane Harvey and be located in the same sub-watershed as a flooded exposure source (PST, MSW, SFS). Parks that were not flooded were considered unexposed and exposure sources were included only if they were flooded. Hot spot analysis (Getis-Ord Gi* statistic) was performed on sub-watersheds with flooded parks and sub-watersheds with flooded exposure sources (Getis and Ord 1992). Sub-watersheds that showed statistically significant clustering (α<0.05) for both flooded parks and flooded exposure sources were considered exposed sub-watersheds.

Results

Hurricane Harvey’s inundation covered 1,447 square kilometers in Harris County, flooding large areas inside and outside of the City of Houston (Figure 2). The County’s 349 recreational parks are generally distributed in the central and southern parts of Harris County, consistent with the location of the City of Houston and associated population densities. Parks were flooded in all quadrants of Harris County, but flooded parks were most heavily concentrated in the central and southern areas. Potential exposure sources were concentrated in the center, north-central, and western parts of Harris County.

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

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Parks and flooded Superfund Sites, Municipal Waste Sites, and Petroleum Storage Tanks by watershed in Harris County, TX

Harris County parks were located in 41 different sub-watersheds (Appendix 1). Of all Harris County parks, 121 of 349 (36.78%) were flooded by Hurricane Harvey and 102 of 121 (84.30%) flooded parks were in sub-watersheds with at least one potential exposure source. A total of 337 potential exposure sources (6 SFS, 32 MSW, and 299 PSTs), located in 30 different sub-watersheds, were inundated by Hurricane Harvey-associated flooding. While no sub-watersheds contained all three exposure types, 18 of 41 sub-watersheds with parks (43.90%) contained at least one exposure source of two different source types. Flooded PSTs were the most widely distributed among sub-watersheds and accounted for 89% of all potential exposure sources for flooded parks. The Hunting and Halls Bayou sub-watersheds contained the highest number of exposure sources and flooded exposure sources with 53 (51 PSTs and 2 MSW) and 44 (42 PSTs and 2 MSW) respectively. The Keegans Bayou-Brays Bayou sub-watershed contained the largest number of flooded parks, 13 with 26 PSTs and 1 MSW site that were flooded.

Sub-watersheds in central Harris County had the highest number of flooded exposure sources, while the County’s northwest and southeast portions had fewer flooded exposure sources (Figure 3-A). Flooded parks and flooded exposure sources were clustered in three bayous, Greens, Whiteoak-Buffalo, and Buffalo-San Jacinto. The Buffalo-San Jacinto bayou showed significant clustering of flooded parks and MSWs. The six flooded SFS were located in four sub-watersheds in the eastern and southern parts of Harris County and all six flooded SFSs had flooded parks in their corresponding sub-watersheds (Figure 3-B). MSWs were most prevalent in central Harris County; however, sub-watersheds in both the northern and western parts of the county contained at least one flooded MSW (Figure 3-C). PSTs were the predominant exposure source in sub-watersheds in central Harris County, while the perimeter had few PSTs. (Figure 3-D). Flooded parks in the southern part of Harris County had minimal risk to exposure sources, although the concentration of flooded parks in the area was high.

Figure 3.

Figure 3.

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Recreational park exposure by sub-watershed and source type in Harris County, TX

Discussion

Hurricane Harvey caused unprecedented catastrophic flooding across the City of Houston and Harris County, Texas. Using GIS-software and data on Harvey-associated inundation generated by the Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD), we described the spatial distribution of flooded parks and potential environmental exposure sources. Of 349 parks in Harris County, 121 were flooded. Nearly 85% of flooded parks were located in the same sub-watershed as a documented toxic source. The majority of exposure sources were located in the center of Harris County, within the City of Houston. Most of these potential exposures were from PSTs.

Flooded PSTs accounted for nearly 90% of all potential exposure sources in parks flooded by Hurricane Harvey in Harris County. Understanding the distribution and fate, as well as the potential exposure pathways, of these complex petroleum substances in flood water for the purpose of assessing potential environmental and health hazards is highly complex (Redman et al. 2012). However, exposure to spills from PSTs could have many potential health impacts. Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX) can contaminate ground water (Gross et al. 2013) including sources of drinking water (DiGiulio et al. 2011) and have been associated with a range of adverse human health effects (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry 2010). Methyl-tert-butyl ether (MTBE) is a gasoline additive that is relatively stable, highly mobile in water, and resistant to natural biodegradation (Hartley, Englande, and Harrington 1999), a potential concern during a flood-related spill since MTBE has been found in ground water in up to 60% of gasoline-contaminated sites (McCarthy and Tiemann 2006). MTBE is a known animal carcinogen, although the human carcinogenic potential for non-occupational exposure is not clear (Ahmed 2001). A May 2019 spill of a gasoline additive called reformate in the Houston Ship Channel resulted in the issuance of seafood consumption advisories based on tests of fish and shellfish that indicated a risk to human health from toxic pollutants. Although not a long-term health concern, acute exposure could cause nausea, headache, and eye irritation (Kinney 2019).

Given the recent history of flooding in Harris County and Houston, improved spatial and other tools that could be used to predict the extent of flooding and flood damage are needed, particularly in relation to potential hazardous exposure sources. The use of Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps, developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to designate areas within the 100-year flood plain, are no longer adequate to address actual flood risk in the City of Houston and Harris County due to a wide range of factors (Brody, Blessing, Sebastian, and Bedient 2012; Xian et al. 2015). These include increases in the proportion of impervious surfaces (compared to previous surfaces) (Brody, Blessing, Sebastian, and Bedient 2012; Ouma and Tateishi 2014), subsidence (Titus and Richman 2001), and the general lack of topographic relief in the region, which leads to greater sensitivity to floodplain model parametrization (Blessing, Antonia and Brody 2017). A Houston Chronicle analysis of 204,000 structures damaged by Hurricane Harvey found that nearly 75% were outside the 100-year flood plain, while more than 50% were outside of any flood zone designation (100-year or 500-year floodplain) (Hunn, Dempsey, and Zaveri 2018). We compared the validity of the HCFCD inundation flood map to the FEMA floodplain map in assessing the risk of flooding after Hurricane Harvey, determining that the inundation map had a sensitivity of 100% compared to a sensitivity of 10% for the FEMA floodplain map. The inundation map from HCFCD more accurately displays the extent of flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey and allows for a more accurate representation of flooded parks and potential exposures than the use of the flood zone designation.

Nearly 40% of Harris County’s parks and recreation areas were flooded by Hurricane Harvey. Because environmental health resources are limited during disaster response, it is important to prioritize areas that should be assessed after a flood disaster. This is especially important because Harris County and the City of Houston use parks and green spaces as part of their flood control strategy making it important to improve understanding of the potential of exposure to various environmental contaminants for residents using these parks after a flood event. In the City of Houston, ranked among the most diverse cities in the U.S. in terms of economic, demographic, and religious diversity (Axford 2018), public parks provide an important outlet for physical activity (Godbey and Mowen 2010; Larson, Jennings, and Cloutier 2016). Access to safe parks may be even more important to residents after natural disasters and floods. In studies conducted in New Orleans, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina, the city’s parks were an integral part of residents’ physical and mental health recovery (Rung et al. 2010). Parks can be part of both flood control and community wellbeing; however, to fulfill both these mandates, an improved understanding of potential post-flooding environmental risks is important.

This study has several important limitations. Inundation data used in this study was provided by HCFCD and assumed to be accurate but could not be validated by the authors. While there is likely some amount of misclassification bias where areas classified as flooded in the inundation projection were not actually flooded, as explained earlier, the inundation map is likely a more accurate representation of flooded areas that FEMA flood zone designations. This study was wholly descriptive in nature, and assumptions about the potential for contamination of recreational areas through the redistribution of chemicals from toxic sources is not supported by soil or water sampling; data about soil type, slope, or flow direction; laboratory analyses or calculation of Toxic Equivalence Factors; or the observance of actual spills from flooded toxic sources or the report or diagnoses of health outcomes. This study did not consider the impacts of flood-associated contamination on ecosystem components or services or other benefits. This study simply aimed to describe the areas of overlap among sites that were known to be both flooded and house toxic chemicals and share sub-watersheds with recreational parks due to the extensive use of floodplain parks as part of Houston’s flood mitigation (Brody et al. 2018). This is only one indicator that may be used for risk assessment priority or assessment of potential exposure risk. Future studies should consider the potential threat of contamination to other infrastructure elements co-located in sub-watersheds with toxic sources where there may be a risk of exposure, such as health care facilities and schools. More explicit details about the populations living in proximity of the parks, as well as their demographic characteristics, could improve the prioritization process for risk assessment post-disaster and facilitate the use of multi-criteria decision making using GIS software. Finally, the Houston case may be somewhat unique in that the City has no zoning to regulate the proximity of commercial land use to residential areas (Johnson at al. 2014).

Floodplain parks and greenways provide multiple uses to both residents and policy makers in Harris County and the City of Houston. They are a crucial element of the region’s flood mitigation system and provide green spaces that are essential to the physical and mental health of those who reside there. Therefore, these areas should be assessed for environmental safety after flooding events. However, the difficulties in performing these types of rapid environmental health assessments have been widely noted (Miller and Birnbaum 2015; Yersky and Miller 2015; Miller et al. 2016; Horney et al. 2019). A more reasonable approach might be to expand ongoing projects that have compared physical, chemical, and microbial constituents of water samples at field stations across the area impacted by Hurricane Harvey to add sampling locations within potentially impacted recreational areas so that baseline values could be established (Kiaghadi and Rifai 2019). Monitoring and tracking the sources of fecal indicator bacteria could also be prioritized in parks adjacent to sewage overflows or flooded wastewater treatment facilities (Kapoor et al. 2018). This study identified potential environmental exposures in parks and recreational areas by describing the spatial distribution and concentration of flooded parks and potential exposure sources. Additional data about potential exposure sources and areas that are at risk from flooding will improve researcher and resident understanding of potential risks to health after a flood disaster.

Acknowledgments

Funding: Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P42ES027704 and Award Number T32ES026568.

Appendix

Appendix 1.

Inundation of Recreational Parks and Potential Exposure Sites by sub-watershed and type, Harris County, TX.

Sub-watershed
(N = 41)		 Total
Parks		 Flooded
Parks		 Total
Contamination
Sites		 Parks
Exposed
(%)		 Superfund
Sites
N (%)		 Municipal
Waste Sites
N (%)		 Petroleum
Storage Tanks
N (%)
Total 349 121 337 - 6 (1.78) 32 (9.50) 299 (88.72)
Barker Reservoir-Buffalo Bayou 3 2 1 66.67 0 (0.00) 1 (100.00) 0 (0.00)
Bens Branch-Frontal Lake Houston 3 2 7 66.67 0 (0.00) 1 (14.29) 6 (85.71)
Carpenters Bayou 4 2 4 50.00 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 4 (100.00)
Cedar Point Lateral-Cedar Bayou 8 1 3 12.50 0 (0.00) 1 (33.33) 2 (66.67)
City of Houston-Buffalo Bayou 14 4 0 - - - -
Clear Creek-Frontal Galveston Bay a. 22 5 0 - - - -
Clear Creek-Frontal Galveston Bay b. 6 6 1 0.00 1 (100.00) 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00)
Clear Creek-Frontal Galveston Bay c. 4 4 0 - - - -
Clear Creek-Frontal Galveston Bay d. 11 4 1 36.36 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 1 (100.00)
Cole Creek-Whiteoak Bayou 11 2 29 18.18 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 29 (100.00)
Country Club Bayou-Brays Bayou 26 5 22 19.23 0 (0.00) 2 (9.09) 20 (90.91)
Dry Creek-Cypress Creek 1 1 6 100.00 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 6 (100.00)
Dry Creek-Spring Creek 5 0 0 - - - -
Ellis Branch-Cedar Bayou 1 1 1 100.00 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 1 (100.00)
Garners Bayou 1 0 8 0.00 0 (0.00) 1 (12.50) 7 (87.50)
Goose Creek-Frontal Galveston Bay 18 2 4 11.11 0 (0.00) 1 (25.00) 3 (75.00)
Halls Bayou 18 8 44 44.44 0 (0.00) 2 (4.55) 42 (95.45)
Highlands Reservoir-San Jacinto River 5 1 7 20.00 2 (28.57) 0 (0.00) 5 (71.43)
Hunting Bayou 23 8 53 34.78 0 (0.00) 2 (3.77) 51 (96.23)
Jackson Bayou-San Jacinto River 6 4 3 66.67 2 (66.67) 0 (0.00) 1 (33.33)
Jersey Lake-Whiteoak Bayou 2 0 0 - - - -
Keegans Bayou-Brays Bayou 19 13 27 68.42 0 (0.00) 1 (3.70) 26 (96.30)
Little Cypress Creek 1 1 2 100.00 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 2 (100.00)
Little Whiteoak Bayou-Whiteoak Bayou 26 11 23 42.31 0 (0.00) 1 (4.35) 22 (95.65)
Lower Greens Bayou 3 2 21 66.67 0 (0.00) 10 (47.62) 11 (52.38)
Lower Sims Bayou 26 5 0 - 0 (0.00) - -
Mallard Lake-Cypress Creek 1 0 1 0.00 0 (0.00) 1 (100.00) 0 (0.00)
Marshall Lake-Cypress Creek 5 5 8 100.00 0 (0.00) 0 8 (100.00)
Middle Greens Bayou 1 0 8 0.00 0 (0.00) 3 (37.50) 5 (62.50)
Orange Branch-East Fork San Jacinto River 1 1 0 - - - -
Panther Branch-Spring Creek 1 0 0 - - - -
Seaberg Reservoir-Cedar Bayou 1 1 1 100.00 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 1 (100.00)
South Mayde Creek 3 2 8 66.67 0 (0.00) 1 (12.50) 7 (87.50)
Spring Branch-Buffalo Bayou 12 1 6 8.33 0 (0.00) 1 (16.67) 5 (83.33)
Spring Creek 4 3 0 - - - -
Sugar Creek-Spring Creek 2 0 0 - - - -
Turkey Creek-Cypress Creek 6 3 3 50.00 0 (0.00) 1 (33.33) 2 (66.67)
Upper Greens Bayou 3 2 25 66.67 0 (0.00) 2 (8.00) 23 (92.00)
Upper Sims Bayou 11 0 0 - - - -
Vince Bayou-Buffalo Bayou 28 8 8 28.57 1 (12.50) 0 (0.00) 7 (87.50)
Willow Creek 3 1 2 33.33 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 2 (100.00)
Total 349 121 337 - 6 (1.78) 32 (9.50) 299 (88.72)
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Footnotes

Publisher's Disclaimer: This Author Accepted Manuscript is a PDF file of an unedited peer-reviewed manuscript that has been accepted for publication but has not been copyedited or corrected. The official version of record that is published in the journal is kept up to date and so may therefore differ from this version.

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate: NA

Consent for publication: N/A

Availability of data and material: All data are publically available.

Competing interest: The authors declare they have no competing interests.

Contributor Information

Ibraheem Karaye, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Texas A&M School of Public Health, 1266 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843.

Kahler W. Stone, Department of Health and Human Performance, Middle Tennessee State University, MTSU PO Box 96, Murfreesboro, TN 37132.

Gaston A. Casillas, Department of Veterinary Physiology & Pharmacology, Interdisciplinary Program in Toxicology, Texas A&M University, 4461 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843.

Galen Newman, Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University, 3137 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843.

Jennifer A. Horney, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Texas A&M School of Public Health, 1266 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843.

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