Water markets are an important tool for ensuring efficient use of available water, including ensuring adequate water for the environment. Texas Living Waters is helping lead a statewide effort to center the environment as a critical user and potential beneficiary in the growing conversation around water markets in Texas.
Water demand in Texas will rise over 18 million acre-feet by 2030. For the first time ever, municipal demand is projected to exceed agricultural use by 2060. Amid these shifts, environmental demands remain largely unmet.
Building out new supplies to meet demand is increasingly difficult and more expensive than conservation and demand management. In this context of scarcity and rising costs, water markets are emerging as a critical, cost-effective efficiency mechanism that deserve lawmakers’ attention.
Water markets can be an important tool for ensuring efficient use of available water, including ensuring adequate water for the environment. To gauge how water markets are developing in Texas and how they might best be used for public benefit, Texas Living Waters has conducted the first statewide analysis of historic water market trends. We are now working hard at the legislature to ensure a policy framework is put into place to facilitate the growth of water markets that benefit Texas’ strained ecosystems.
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