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Water Use Water is used for a variety of different purposes in Texas, including municipal, irrigation, livestock, manufacturing, mining, and steam-electric power generation. Large-scale reductions in water use are possible in all user groups through the application of water conservation measures. The major water user groups are Municipal, Agricultural, and Industrial. Fish and wildlife resources also rely on sufficient water supplies for their survival. Types of Water Use  Municipal Water Use Agricultural Water Use Industrial Water UseMunicipal Water Use Municipal water use includes residential, commercial (such as retail stores and office buildings), and institutional (such as schools and prisons) uses. Over the 50-year planning horizon, water demands for municipal purposes are projected to increase from 4.23 to 7.06 million acre-feet/year. While the 2002 State Water Plan gives some limited attention to municipal water conservation, the potential for water conservation remains largely untapped. The 2002 State Water Plan shows a savings of approximately 2 million acre-feet/year owing to conservation over the 50-year period. About half of this savings (976,000 acre-feet/year) is due primarily to compliance with the plumbing and fixtures code that has been a part of state law for more than 10 years. The other half (987,914 acre-feet/year) is due to additional agricultural, industrial, and municipal proactive water conservation strategies recommended in the State Water Plan. Of this latter half, approximately one-tenth of the savings, or 0.099 million acre-feet/year, is due to municipal water conservation. NWF calculated the potential to save an additional 1 million acre-feet/year from advanced municipal conservation efforts alone if all major Texas cities reduced their water use by as much as San Antonio and El Paso have done and propose to do. Read the report. In reality, even more can be done. The municipal water use rates that serve as the starting point for the calculation of projected demands in the 2002 State Water Plan are excessively high. The Year 2000 usage rates in the Plan are not actual usage rates but rather projections that were commonly based on outdated data collected before many cities began water conservation programs. The use of data almost two decades old in projecting future demands ignores any recent progress made by a city to limit wasteful water usage. There is also an extremely high variation in use rates between cities. This disparity is largely due to the fact that, while some cities with more pressing water supply problems have implemented advanced conservation programs, others continue to use water as if there were an unlimited supply. Currently, in the 2002 State Water Plan, these vastly different water use rates are simply accepted and cities with excessively high rates are not expected to take steps to reduce that excessive usage. However, there are ways that the state water planning agencies could encourage conservation in Texas to create a more uniform (and prudent) water use rate across the state. Success Stories Some communities around the State have taken significant strides in ensuring wise water use and have found conservation programs to be a cost effective method of meeting increased water demands while postponing expensive supply or capacity expansion. Austin, Corpus Christi, El Paso, Houston, and San Antonio have active conservation programs that promote water use efficiency. Each of these cities has used water conservation for different reasons: Austin wants to lower demand to meet a growing customer base without the high costs of more treatment capacity; Corpus Christi wants to postpone the need for additional supply; El Paso also has an extremely limited long-term supply; Houston needs to decrease its use of groundwater to reduce subsidence; and lastly, San Antonio has limited water availability, especially during drought conditions. El Paso and San Antonio, in particular, have experienced notable success in decreasing and controlling their per capita water use; moreover, both have commendable plans for reductions in the future. Read More About this Success StoryOnline Resources - Check out the Environmental Profiles website for additional information about municipal water use in Texas. Agricultural Water Use The State Water Plan projects irrigation water demand to decline from 57% of the State's total demand in 2000 to about 42% in 2050. That projected decline is due to a combination of reductions in available groundwater supplies, more water-efficient irrigation practices, and the expected voluntary transfer of surface water rights from agricultural users to municipal users. Some of the methods of conserving water among agricultural users include installing efficient irrigation equipment, utilizing genetic engineering, voluntarily converting irrigated acreage to dry-land production, utilizing conservation tillage methods, installing efficient irrigation equipment, and lining of irrigation canals to ensure efficiency of delivery systems for meeting future irrigation demands. Additional conservation techniques include laser leveling of fields (which can increase irrigation efficiency) and automated water delivery control systems. Online Resources - Check out the Environmental Profiles website for additional information about irrigation water use in Texas. Industrial Water Use Water use and the potential for water conservation vary amongst industries. This is due in part to the variation in the industrial processes. Some industrial processes involve direct consumption of water as part of the manufacture of products. Others may use very little water in direct manufacturing but may use large volumes of water for cooling or cleaning purposes. Some examples of manufacturing industries include chemical product manufacturing, petroleum refining, pulp and paper production, primary metal manufacturing, and the manufacture of food and kindred products. Regardless of the processes involved, water conservation among most industrial users could be increased by developing and implementing a "Best Management Practices" program, which incorporates the most up-to-date water conservation measures for each industry. Online Resources - Find out more ideas from the EPA for using water more efficiently in industry. - Check out the Environmental Profiles website for additional information about industrial water use in Texas.
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