Playa wetlands are the primary hydrological features in the Southern High Plains region of Texas. Texas playas are located predominantly on private land and gaining access for aquatic habitat surveys can be challenging. The associated data are provided to increase publicly-available water chemistry measurements from regional playa wetlands in rural environs. 

Playas are located in Deaf Smith (n = 5), Castro (n = 1), Floyd (n = 6), Hale County (n = 4), Texas, USA. To protect landowner privacy, geographic coordinates are not provided. From May - August 2019, all playa basins were dominated by cropland buffers (≤1 km) and located ≥2 km from asphalt-paved roadways. All playas were sampled once from May - June, and playas that were still inundated in July - August were sampled a second time. Sampling occurred between 1100–1700 hrs. An AMTAST Portable Dissolved Oxygen and Temperature Meter (DO Range: 0–20.0 mg/L; AMTAST USA, Inc.; Lakeland, FL, USA) was used to measure dissolved oxygen (DO), an ELITEPHKIT Waterproof pH Tester (Thermo Fisher; Carlsbad, CA, USA) was used to measure pH and water temperature. Surface water samples were also collected in a 50-mL polypropylene centrifuge tube and stored on ice for transport to Texas Tech University (Lubbock, Texas, USA), where a HACH DR3900 Laboratory VIS spectrophotometer was used to measure nitrate and ammonia concentrations.

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