Editing Lake Travis (section)

===Floods===
Lake Travis serves as the primary [[flood]] control reservoir of the Highland Lake chain. The LCRA, under advisement from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is responsible for floodgate operations at Mansfield Dam. Ideally, this is done in a time-delayed fashion after a major rainfall so as to either mitigate or outright prevent downstream flooding which otherwise would have been both immediate and extreme without the dam's presence. As Lake Travis levels increase during major floods, floodgate operations are conducted to protect property around Lake Travis as well as the dam itself.

While the dam's physical design assists in its own protection during floods, extensive spillway operations, a worst-case scenario which has not happened in the lake's history, could undermine the dam's base and affect its overall integrity. Under such conditions, operations are primarily intended to protect the dam, and lake water may be released to the dam's full, 24-floodgate capacity—regardless of downstream effects—to prevent the catastrophic loss of the dam.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Key elevations for Lake Travis during floods {{!}} LCRA|url=https://www.lcra.org/water/floods/key-elevations-for-lake-travis-during-floods/|access-date=2020-09-07|website=www.lcra.org}}</ref> Including its hydroelectric generators but not the spillway, at 681 feet above msl the dam's total maximum discharge capacity is more than 130,000 cubic feet per second (cfs); a bit under one million gallons per second.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Mansfield Dam and Lake Travis|url=http://www.lcra.org/water/dams-and-lakes/pages/mansfield-dam.aspx|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160831225431/http://www.lcra.org/water/dams-and-lakes/pages/mansfield-dam.aspx|archive-date=31 August 2016|access-date=17 August 2016|website=Lower Colorado River Authority}}</ref> Rates of discharge increase as water levels/pressures increase.