The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) recognizes Tamaulipan brushland as a unique ecosystem that is found only in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) of south Texas in the United States and northeastern Mexico. The LRGV is not really a valley but a delta, or a fertile plain, that slopes away from the Rio Grande (Johnston 1963; Rio Grande Valley Chamber of Commerce 1983; Lonard et al. 1988). The combination of climate, vegetation, and associated wildlife is unlike that in any other region of the United States. The vegetation is influenced by edaphic factors, and plant distribution can be correlated with geologic formations (Clover 1937). Characteristic vegetation of Tamaulipan brushland is dense and thorny. The most luxuriant brush is found on alluvial soil of the Rio Grande floodplain (Blair 1950), and large cedar elms (Ulmus crassifolla) dominate in some mesic areas. Vegetation in the xeric upland areas is mostly spiny shrubs and stunted trees (Clover 1937). A few characteristic plant species comprise the bulk of the brush vegetation. At present, some of the ubiquitous woody plant species are (Blair 1950): Texas ebony (Pithecello)- bium flexicaule); retama (Parkinsonia aculeata); granj eno (Celtis pallida); huisache (Acacia srnallii); prickly pear (Opuntia lindheimeri); and mesquite (Prosopis glaiidulosa) - although prevalence of one mesquite may be due to human land abuse (Archer et al. 1988).

More than the economy, more than changing demographics, evenmore than education, water is the key to the future of Texas. It is not much of an overstatement to claim that water is the future of Texas. In the fall of 2000, a conference on "the world's most crucial natural resource" was held at Texas A&M University. It was a gathering of people with many viewpoints and areas of expertise, all focused on what the book's editors rightly say is and will be the state's definingissue--water. Together, the observations and recommendations brought together in this volume represent some of the best thinking about Texas' connections with water--in the past, present, and future. Ranging from broad historical overviews to technical and scientific discussions, the chapters address the questions of where we have been and where we are headed as we enter a new century of challenges to provide water for Texas.

The Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge lies on the northern bank of the Rio Grande in South Texas, about seventy miles upriver from the Gulf of Mexico. In Border Sanctuary, M.J. Morgan uncovers how 2,000 acres of rare subtropical riparian forest came to be preserved in a region otherwise dramatically altered by human habitation. The story she tells begins and ends with the efforts of the Rio Grande Valley Nature Club to protect one of the last remaining stopovers for birds migrating north from Central and South America. In between, she reconstructs a two hundred-year human and environmental history of the original “two square leagues” of the Santa Ana land grant and of the Mexican and Tejano families who lived on, worked, and ultimately helped preserve this forest on the river’s edge. As border issues continue to present serious challenges for Texas and the nation, it is especially important to be reminded of the deep connection between the region’s human and natural history from the long perspective Morgan provides here. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.