Acquiring Groundwater and Surface Water

Groundwater Leasing, Marketing and Sales

Transfers and Transactions

Water Quality Trading

Acquiring Groundwater and Surface Water
Surface water belongs to the state of Texas. Before using state water, you must obtain a permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). In comparison, Texas groundwater belongs to the owner of the land above it and may used or sold as private property. Texas courts have adopted, and the legislature has not modified, the common law rule that a landowner has a right to take for use or sale all the water that he can capture from below his land. More

Groundwater Leasing, Marketing and Sales
Browse presentations from recent Texas Water conferences on Groundwater Leasing, Marketing and Sales. More

Transfers and Transactions
As with other property rights, a water right can be sold, leased or transferred to another person. As such, the water right can be passed or conveyed automatically with the title to the land, unless reserved in a deed, or can be sold separately from the land. In these cases the water code provides that the written instruments conveying water rights may be recorded in the same manner as a property deed. More

Water Quality Trading The use of market-based approaches to environmental policy in the U.S. is clearly on the rise. Acid rain is being addressed using tradable permits for sulfur dioxide emission, cities throughout the country allow trading in Nitrogen Oxide, wetland mitigation banks are being widely used, and trading in greenhouse gases is authorized by the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. More

Publications

A Bibliographic Pathfinder on Water Marketing
Ronald A. Kaiser and Michael McFarland

Dividing the Waters: Water Marketing as a Conflict Resolution Strategy in the Edwards Aquifer Region
Ronald A. Kaiser and Laura M. Phillips

Effluent Trading: A Policy Review for Texas
Ronald A. Kaiser, et. al.

Handbook of Texas Water Law
Ronald A. Kaiser

Market Structures for U.S. Water Quality Trading
Richard T. Woodward and Ronald A. Kaiser

Questions about Groundwater Conservation Districts in Texas
Ronald A. Kaiser. Bruce J. Lesikar, Valeen Silvy

Solving the Texas Water Puzzle:
Market-Based Allocation of Water
Ronald A. Kaiser

The Structure and Practice of Water Quality Trading Markets
Richard T. Woodward, Ronald A. Kaiser, Aaron-Marie B. Wicks

Texas Water Marketing in the Next Millennium: A Conceptual and Legal Analysis
Ronald A. Kaiser

Untying the Gordian Knot: Negotiated Strategies for protecting Instream Flows in Texas
Ronald A. Kaiser

Water Marketing in Texas
Ronald A. Kaiser

Who Owns the Water?
Ronald A. Kaiser
Reproduced with permission from the July 2005 issue of Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine.

Texas A&M University · Texas AgriLife Research · Texas AgriLife Extension Service