Fred Janssen, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department,
Inland Fisheries Division, 4200 Smith School Road, Austin, Texas 78744; Voice
512-389-4655; FAX 512-389-4656; E-Mail fred.janssen@tpwd.state.tx.us
Keywords: GIS, GPS, habitat, surveys, mapping
The Inland Fisheries Division of the Texas Parks and Wildlife
Department (TPWD) began using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a tool to increase
the effectiveness of aquatic resource management in August 1994. Before that time, fishery
data were only examined in two dimensions since fishery and corresponding environmental
data were not available in a digital format. GIS has allowed us to collect data from a
variety of sources and layer them for spatial analyses. We are fully integrating GIS into
our data management system by creating base maps of our aquatic systems and
geo-referencing our routine fish data collection. We overlaid grids on our reservoir maps
to facilitate location of our randomly selected fish population survey sites, and
geo-referenced all historic fish survey data by identifying site coordinates on grid maps.
During field surveys, Global Positioning Systems (GPS) allowed us to collect information
directly into electronic databases without transcribing (e.g. lake-wide habitat
assessments and pre-impoundment surveys), map previously unavailable features such as
reservoir shorelines in fluctuating water bodies, and more quickly and accurately monitor
exotic vegetation distribution and coverage. Sharing biological information has become
increasingly important. Because our data are available in a standard GIS format, they are
easily and frequently used by other natural resource managers.
