Galveston Bay: Chapter D in Emergent wetlands status and trends in the northern Gulf of Mexico: 1950-2010

Abstract

The Galveston Bay estuary is located on the upper Texas Gulf coast (Lester and Gonzalez, 2002). It is composed of four major sub-bays - Galveston, Trinity, East, and West Bays. It is Texas’ largest estuary on the Gulf Coast with a total area of 155,399 hectares (384,000 acres) and 1,885 km (1,171 miles) of shoreline (Burgan and Engle, 2006). The volume of the bay has increased over the past 50 years due to subsidence, dredging, and sea level rise. Outside of ship channels, the maximum depth is only 3.7 m (12 ft), with the average depth ranging from 1.2 m (4 ft) to 2.4 m (8 ft) - even shallower in areas with widespread oyster reefs (Lester and Gonzalez, 2002). The tidal range is less than 0.9 m (3 ft), but water levels and circulation are highly influenced by wind. The estuary was formed in a drowned river delta, and its bayous were once channels of the Brazos and Trinity Rivers. Today, the watersheds surrounding the Trinity and San Jacinto Rivers, along with many other smaller bayous, feed into the bay. The entire Galveston Bay watershed is 85,470 km 2 (33,000 miles 2 ) large (Figure 1). Galveston Island, a 5,000 year old sand bar that lies at the western edge of the bay’s opening into the Gulf of Mexico, impedes the freshwater flow of the Trinity and San Jacinto Rivers into the Gulf, the majority of which comes from the Trinity. The Bolivar Peninsula lies at the eastern edge of the bay’s opening into the Gulf. Water flows into the Gulf at Bolivar Roads, 1 U.S. Geological Survey National Wetlands Research Center, 700 Cajundome Blvd., Lafayette, LA 70506 2 Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi, 6300 Ocean Drive, Unit 5869, Corpus Christi, Texas 78412 2 Galveston Pass, between Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula, and at San Luis Pass, between the western side of Galveston Island and Follets Island.