The Texas Water Development Board has published its Draft 2027 State Water Plan, setting out the investment and strategy needed to close a widening gap between supply and demand through 2080.
Released on 16 April 2026, the Draft 2027 State Water Plan was developed on an accelerated schedule to meet the July 2026 deadline for commitments under the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT), the state's primary financing mechanism for water supply projects. The document represents the first of a two-phase approach: a more comprehensive amendment is expected before the statutory deadline of January 2027. The plan draws on 16 regional water plans developed by over 500 volunteer planning group members and covers a 50-year horizon from 2030 to 2080, planning for a recurrence of the state's drought of record, the driest seven-year period in recorded Texas history.
Supply declining, demand rising
The supply-demand outlook is stark. Texas' existing water supplies are projected to fall by approximately 10% between 2030 and 2080, driven primarily by aquifer depletion, while total water demand grows by around 6% over the same period as the state's population rises from 34.2 million to 52.3 million. Modelling a recurrence of the state's worst recorded drought, the plan projects a potential water shortage of 5.8 million acre-feet per year (around 7.2 billion m³) by 2080, equivalent to roughly one third of the state's total projected demand at that point.
Municipal shortages are projected to be the dominant driver of the state's water deficit by that point, accounting for 57% of the total, driven by population growth concentrated in just four of the state's 16 planning regions. Failure to act carries an estimated economic cost of $177 billion per year by 2080, alongside the loss of nearly one million jobs.
A diverse but surface-water-dominant strategy mix
The plan recommends approximately 6,700 water management strategies across roughly 3,000 projects, delivering up to 7.6 million acre-feet per year of additional supply by 2080 at a total capital cost of $174 billion in 2023 dollars, more than double the $81 billion figure in the previous 2022 plan. The increase reflects a combination of construction cost inflation, supply chain pressures since the COVID-19 pandemic, an extended planning horizon to 2080, a growing backlog of unimplemented projects from previous cycles, and the inclusion of the $9.8 billion Toledo Bend Reservoir project, added following a mediated interregional conflict resolution.
Surface water development remains the dominant strategy at 36% of total supply volumes, with major new reservoirs continuing to play a central role. Conservation and reuse together account for 43% of strategy supplies in 2080, underlining their growing importance as cost-effective, drought-resilient complements to infrastructure investment. Groundwater desalination, seawater desalination, aquifer storage and recovery, and direct potable reuse each feature as meaningful contributors.
Funding progress and legislative priorities
Since adoption of the 2022 plan, the TWDB has closed on approximately $12.4 billion in financial assistance for 68 recommended projects, including major investments in Houston's East Water Purification Plant, the Bois D'Arc and Lake Ralph Hall reservoirs, and several brackish groundwater and desalination schemes along the Rio Grande corridor. The draft plan includes ten legislative recommendations to the Texas Legislature, among them calls for a unified statewide groundwater well identification system, improved groundwater modelling resources for conservation districts, clearer statutory definition of interregional conflicts, and protection of four additional reservoir sites.
