PUBLIC METHOD / BETA

How Texas Resource Watch handles evidence

The system follows the physical chain WATER → POWER → HEAT → MONEY → LAND/RECORDS → VERIFICATION and preserves uncertainty rather than converting missing evidence into certainty.

Fact classes

MEASURED, REPORTED, RECORDED, CALCULATED, MODELED, or UNKNOWN. Each proposition should preserve its source locator, geography, period, assumptions, uncertainty, confidence, competing evidence and review status.

Core guards

Missing evidence is not zero.

Aquifer overlap does not prove pumping.

Authorization does not prove physical use.

Withdrawal does not equal consumptive depletion.

Contracted power does not equal energized or consumed power.

Correlation and proximity do not establish causation.

Water evidence ladder

Geography → Access → Authorization → Physical Use → Net Consumption → Resource Effect → Siting Influence.

Publication states

STAGING → REVIEW_PENDING → RED_TEAM_REVIEW → FROZEN_V1 → PUBLIC → SUPERSEDED.

National Dataset v1.0 is not represented as frozen or public until its release gates are actually satisfied.