Since 1957, the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB)  has been charged by the Texas Legislature with preparing a comprehensive and flexible long-term plan for the development, conservation, and management of the state's water resources.  In 1997, the Texas Legislature created a “grass roots’ initiative (Senate Bill 1) and charged the TWDB with organizing regional water planning groups comprised of citizens from the local areas and representing eleven interest categories to develop regional water plans from the community level up to the state.  The process worked very well and the first State Water Plan of this type was accepted and approved by the TWDB and the Texas Legislature, January 2002.

Future State Water Plans will be based on approved regional water plans, pursuant to requirements of the 75th Texas Legislature. Regional water planning groups are currently working to direct the update of plans for sixteen distinct regional water planning areas, which must be completed and submitted to the TWDB. 

These regional plans are to describe their respective regional planning areas, determine present and future population and water demand information, evaluate adequacy of current water supplies, identify water surpluses or needs by region, and develop management strategies to meet identified water needs under drought of record conditions. The RWPGs are further charged to identify unique stream segments and reservoir sites and make policy recommendations to the TWDB and the Legislature for inclusion in each five-year update of the State Water Plan.