Texas Border Business
The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) regularly engages in an extensive strategic effort resulting in the State Water Plan. The goal is to have a large enough water supply based on expected population and economic growth and a recurrence of the worst droughts in history, the “drought of record,” which is generally when water supplies are lowest and demands are highest.
Looking at where the water goes, irrigation is the largest component by a large margin, with almost 8.4 million acre-feet (as of 2030), followed by municipal (6.0 million), manufacturing (1.6 million), steam-electric power (0.7 million), mining (0.4 million), and livestock (0.3 million). Over the next few decades, municipal is expected to become the largest category, with growth of 48% by 2080.
The TWDB’s projections anticipate that population will increase 53% between 2030 and 2080. At the same time, the state’s existing water supplies which can currently be relied on in the event of drought are projected to decline by about 10% between 2030 and 2080, primarily due to depletion of aquifers. If strategies are not implemented over the next 50 years, TWDB estimates that approximately one of every four Texans in 2080 would have less than half the municipal water supplies required during a drought of record.
Meeting water demand is not simply having sufficient supplies. For example, current demand projections are lower compared to the previous plan in some regions due to declines in key aquifers (such as the Ogallalla), management responses by related water districts, and as a result, rising unmet irrigation demand.
The plan recommends more than 10,000 projects, from small improvements in strategy to major reservoirs. The total costs to implement recommended projects in the 2027 Plan are $174 billion (2023 dollars), more than double the cost of the 2022 Plan. Reasons for the increase include inflation in construction costs since the last plan, the extension of the planning horizon an additional 10 years out to 2080, and additional initiatives.
Conservation and reuse are key aspects of increased water supplies in 2080, with conservation, which is notoriously difficult to achieve, representing some 30% of volumes and projected reuse accounting for an additional 13%. Major surface water reservoir projects and other surface water initiatives account for 36%, even though they are quite complex and require considerable time and resources to implement. Other categories include groundwater and seawater desalinization, aquifer storage and recovery, and groundwater wells.
It is clear from TWDB projections that without being proactive, the state will fall well short of needed supplies in the decades to come. Ensuring that Texas has sufficient water for a growing population and economy is an extremely time-consuming and expensive process, but it is also imperative. Stay safe!
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Dr. M. Ray Perryman is President and Chief Executive Officer of The Perryman Group (www.perrymangroup.com), which has served the needs of more than 3,000 clients over the past four decades.
