Texas is facing a reckoning on water that we must address if the state wants to secure its future prosperity. The State Water Plan prepared by the Texas Water Development Board projects that Texas faces a long-term water supply deficit of 6.9 million acre-feet in 50 years if we do not expand our water supply portfolio and are hit by another long, severe drought. The reason for this potential deficit is simple: we live in a drought-prone state where our population will grow as our available water supplies diminish.
Two factors could aggravate this water supply deficit. First, we know that Texas’ population is projected to grow significantly over the next 50 years. A larger state population, combined with expanded economic activity, will increase and accelerate the demand for more water supplies.
Then there is the issue of drought and what it means for our future water supplies. Looking back in history, we know from paleoclimatic records that Texas endured droughts that were longer and more severe than the Drought of Record of the 1950s. These occurred during the 19th century between the time of the Texas Revolution and the Civil War and in the early 18th century. Last month, Texas 2036 and the Office of the State Climatologist at Texas A&M University released an updated report on observed and projected extreme weather trends.
While the report does not make any specific predictions, it does project “increased drought severity” due to warmer temperatures and greater rainfall variability. This rainfall variability will contribute to more erratic runoff into our surface water resources. On top of this, warmer temperatures will increase the rate of summertime evaporative losses from our lakes and reservoirs by 7 percent.
The good news here is that the Texas Legislature recently gave regional water planners the green light to plan for droughts worse than the Drought of Record of the 1950s. The bad news here is that the famous saying that “Texas is the land of perpetual drought, visited by the occasional biblical flood” will continue to hold true, with the prospects of future droughts being worse.
The data suggests that Texas’ water supply challenges will certainly grow in the coming decades. Simply put, we will need a broad, diversified water supply portfolio in order to prepare for the challenges ahead. This is in addition to the other challenge of fixing our aging, deteriorating, and leaking water and wastewater systems.
The long-term solution here involves state and local investment in water infrastructure, including water supply projects. The state water plan already includes forecasts of what the economic consequences will be if we don’t develop the water supplies needed for the next big drought. There will be GDP loss, jobs gone, and people will leave Texas for elsewhere.
If we were to invert this problem, we get to the heartening solution: investment in water infrastructure that supports continued economic growth and development.
It follows then that new state investments in new water supplies would boost GDP and job growth in Texas and would be a wise use of taxpayer dollars by legislators.
Jeremy B. Mazur is a senior policy advisor at Texas 2036. Texas 2036 is a nonpartisan public policy think tank founded by Dallas attorney Tom Luce. Former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings joined the organization in 2019, serving as president and CEO until 2023, and was succeeded by former president of Rice University, David Leebron. The organization has offices in Dallas and Austin, Texas. The organization’s name is based on the year of Texas’s bicentennial. Texas 2036 focuses on education and workforce; health; infrastructure; natural resources; justice and safety; and government performance.
