What are Groundwater Management Areas?
Groundwater Management Areas (GMAs) are joint planning groups established by the State Legislature via House Bill 1763 “to provide for the conservation, preservation, protection, recharging, and prevention of waste of the groundwater, and of groundwater reservoirs or their subdivisions, and to control subsidence caused by withdrawal of water from those groundwater reservoirs or their subdivisions, consistent with the objectives of Section 59, Article XVI, Texas Constitution.”
Texas has 16 GMAs, composed of representatives and managers from Groundwater Conservation Districts (GCDs) within their designated areas, that must meet regularly to conduct joint planning for shared water sources. This collaborative framework helps prevent waste, protect shared reservoirs, and control land subsidence caused by groundwater withdrawals.
A GMA’s primary duty is to establish Desired Future Conditions (DFCs), quantified management goals, that are submitted to the Texas Water Development Board at least once every five years. Voting participation in establishing DFCs is restricted to operational GCDs. Based on the chosen Desired Future Condition, the Texas Water Development Board determines how much groundwater is available for withdrawal. These volumes in turn become the permitting targets for the groundwater districts and will be used in the state’s regional water planning process.
What is Groundwater Management Area 14 (GMA-14)?
The GMA-14 administrative boundary runs along Texas’s Gulf Coast and includes five Groundwater Conservation Districts (GCDs) representing 12 counties, five counties without a GCD, and two Subsidence Districts representing 3 counties, as this region shares groundwater resources from the same aquifers. However, the planning group that votes on and determines DFCs for GMA-14 is strictly composed of five GCDs shown on the map shown to the right.
How are Subsidence Districts involved in GMA-14?
The Texas Legislature established Subsidence Districts to prevent further subsidence in Fort Bend, Galveston, and Harris counties by regulating groundwater. Groundwater in this area is regulated because the aquifer system it relies on, the Gulf Coast Aquifer, irreversibly compacts when too much water is removed, leading to land subsidence, which contributes to significant issues like infrastructure damage and flooding. Because GMA-14 decisions affect the Gulf Coast Aquifer and the continued measured subsidence within GMA-14’s boundary, both the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District (HGSD) and the Fort Bend Subsidence District (FBSD) closely follow this planning group.
HGSD and FBSD have historically been involved in GMA-14 through interlocal agreements to fund and support research needed to make the best-informed decisions for regional groundwater planning. Neither Subsidence Districts voted on or determined DFCs; their participation was solely to share resources and data because the decisions made by GMA-14 determine groundwater withdrawals from the Gulf Coast Aquifer, a shared aquifer system that experiences subsidence when too much groundwater is removed from it.
GMA-14 Map
Subsidence Rate from 2021 to 2025
HGSD’s Public Comments on Recent GMA-14 Proposed DFCs
In this most recent round of planning, the GMA-14 planning group determined that it would not enter into an interlocal agreement with neighboring Subsidence Districts or counties without a GCD. Without an interlocal agreement, these entities may only participate by making or submitting public comment.
Current data indicates subsidence occurring in several counties within the GMA-14 boundary.
Because the decisions made by GMA-14 affect the Gulf Coast Aquifer, our shared aquifer that experiences subsidence when too much groundwater is removed from it, the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District submitted public comment via email submission. Additionally, HGSD General Manager Mike Turco attended the GMA-14 public meeting on August 11, 2026, to provide additional public comments in person. To view a video recording of this meeting and his public comment, click here.
These comments provide valuable feedback and resources on concerns about modeling and the magnitude of increased pumping from GMA-14’s proposed DFCs, which listed drawdown percentages for counties that cannot vote or participate in the planning process.