![\"Dr.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Katie-Tritsch_DSC3410_Web.jpg\")
Dr. Robert Mace<\/p>\nSince the pioneer days, Central Texans have drilled wells to pump water from the Edwards and Trinity aquifers. But population and industry growth are draining aquifers faster than Mother Nature can replenish them, especially during drought. Some homeowners have even seen their wells run dry.\u00a0For Tritsch, the answer was rainwater: Her family built a system to collect the rain that falls on their roof, store it in a 25,000-gallon tank, and clean it for all of their needs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were interested in rainwater, and we were lucky to be working with a builder who had experience with rainwater-harvesting systems,\u201d Tritsch says. \u201cIt was also cheaper to build a rainwater system than it was to dig a well. So rather than extracting water from our groundwater resources, we are capturing it and storing it right here on the landscape where\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0coming down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. Robert Mace<\/p>\n
More Texans should be following Tritsch\u2019s example, says Dr. Robert Mace, executive director of TXST\u2019s Meadows Center for Water and the Environment. Mace recently published \u201cReliable Rainwater Is Only a Roof Away: The Firm Yield of Rainwater Harvesting in Texas<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Coauthored by Ricardo O. Briones, a TXST sustainability program graduate who now works for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the report finds that rainwater harvesting can be a\u00a0reliable\u00a0water-supply strategy.\u00a0A\u00a0Meadows Foundation\u00a0endowment\u00a0and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration funded their work with grants of about $60,000 and $20,000, respectively, Mace says.\u00a0<\/p>\n