Making Every Drop and Every Dollar Count
The Middle and Lower Rio Grande Valleys (RGV) depend heavily on surface water from the Rio Grande River to support 1.7 million Americans. Drought, aging water delivery systems, fast-growing cities, and lower-than-expected Treaty deliveries from Mexico have put communities, agricultural producers, and the regional economy at risk.
Of the 1.5 million acre-feet of water rights in the RGV, less than 60% of that water has been available recently. This water is partitioned formulaically. All domestic, municipal, and industrial water rights are served first, while agricultural users get what is left.
This persistent lack of water for agriculture has major regional and national impacts. The farms irrigated by the Lower Rio Grande River in southern Texas produce more than 100,000 tons of grapefruits and oranges each year. Other crops include cotton, corn, and sorghum. Sugarcane, which was once a major agricultural product and industry in the basin, has left due to water scarcity.
Recognizing that a status quo approach will not continue to work, federal, regional, and state agencies are now keenly focused on building a more secure water future for the RGV.
The Freshwater Trust (TFT) supported the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in assisting water users in the region. TFT’s data-driven approach to water resource management helped support ongoing investments in the water future of the Rio Grande.
In 2025, USDA convened irrigation districts, agricultural operations, municipal water users, and TFT for a series of dialogues about applying analytics to identify high-impact projects. One promising outcome focused on water loss from aging infrastructure. TFT analyzed more than 3,300 miles of irrigation water conveyance structures and identified more than 440 miles of unlined earthen canals. In these unlined structures, water loss from seepage was as high as 171,500 acre-feet per year and loss from evaporation was as high as 17,000 acre-feet per year.
Putting this data to work, TFT designed a prototype model for the Cameron County Irrigation District #2 that helped the district identify infrastructure upgrade projects—such as lining or piping canals to reduce seepage loss.
Insight from this prototype analysis is displayed in an online dashboard:
The project information automatically syncs from the dashboard to IrrigationViz, a tool hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy, where projects can be compared and further refined:
“Using this insight, irrigation districts are able to identify specific projects they care about and see how those projects might compete for conservation funds,” said David Primozich, Vice President of Water at TFT. “At the same time, all the funders interested in this work can use these tools to collectively find the best way to spend their dollars.”
In 2026, funding from USDA and the North American Development Bank (NADBank) is enabling TFT to expand the analytical prototype to 15 more irrigation districts across the region. NADBank, which finances more than $1.4 billion in water infrastructure projects in U.S.-Mexico border states, is interested in supporting this effort as it rolls out its $400-million Water Resiliency Fund.
“This toolkit will help us ensure every dollar we spend maximizes regional benefits,” said Salvador Lopez, Chief Environmental Officer at NADBank.
Better coordinated funding decisions will help bolster agricultural communities and farmers in southern Texas.
This research was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the Chief Economist (OCE) to directly benefit and support agricultural communities and U.S. farmers. It may not necessarily express the views of OCE.
