Scaling Our Successes 

Our model of Innovate-Demonstrate-Educate-Replicate drives us to test creative strategies, share and promote lessons learned, and collaborate and scale with diverse stakeholders and water users across Texas. Looking into the future, we’re doubling down on these strengths to meet the moment and provide water for Texas’ people, nature, and economy. 

2025-2027 Strategic Plan 

Our Strategic Plan is guided by five goals. Read the full plan here.

1. Lead Efforts to Get the Flows Right: Texas Water Trade is the state’s premier organization leading the use of market-based innovations and other voluntary water transactions to protect the right amount of water in the right place at the right time to benefit diverse users and nature. Using original research and collaborative partnerships, we will advance understanding of the cost/benefit considerations and better equip decision-makers and stakeholders to pursue environmental water transactions. 

2. Collaborative Water Restoration: Over the next three years, Texas Water Trade will build on the success of our Texas Water Market Makers Initiative to increase voluntary transactions with local and regional partners, preserving and moving water where it is needed most to sustain and nourish wildlife, nature, communities, and the economy. 

3. Increase Strategic Water Usage: In 2024, Texas Water Trade launched the award-winning Net Zero Water Toolkit, a public resource for property developers, owners/operators, and other land development professionals in Texas—guiding them in the design, permitting, and maintenance of on-site water reuse. Through the Net Zero Water program, we will accelerate the implementation of on-site water reuse projects in new and redeveloped buildings in targeted water-stressed regions, reducing the depletion of local water resources and better balancing growth with water availability. 

4. Balance Urban Growth With Smart Planning: One Water is a transformative way of viewing, valuing, and managing water—whether from the tap, a stream, a storm, an aquifer, or a sewer—in a collaborative, integrated, and holistic manner. Texas Water Trade will uplift and support the Texas One Water community by contributing our unique technical expertise and collaboratively solving water management problems. 

5. Explore and Elevate Creative Approaches to Water Issues: Some water issues in Texas require a timely approach, and we are committed to advancing proven solutions while simultaneously seeking, developing, and supporting new ideas with partners from all sectors. Texas Water Trade will strategically leverage its expertise, network, and resources to serve as the incubator for needed bridge solutions, such as Vida Water, to resolve acute and urgent water crises impacting Texas’ people and nature.