If you own land along a Texas stream, river, or lake, your riparian rights in Texas let you take a limited amount of surface water for household and livestock use without a permit, but the water itself belongs to the state, your property line sits at the gradient boundary rather than the high water mark, and almost every other use requires authorization from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The rules borrow from Spanish, Mexican, English common law, and modern statute, and they often work differently than landowners expect.
Where Your Property Actually Ends
Texas does not draw the private-public line at the high water mark the way most states do. It uses the “gradient boundary,” which sits midway between the lowest water level that just reaches the cut bank and the highest level that just fails to overtop it.1Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Stream Navigation Law – The Gradient Boundary Everything above that line is yours; what sits below depends on whether the stream is legally navigable.
If the stream is navigable, the state owns the entire bed, and your deed stops at the gradient boundary.2Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. If A River Runs Through It, What Law Applies? If it is non-navigable, the adjoining landowners typically own the bed, with property lines running to the center of the channel. That difference decides whether you own the gravel under your favorite fishing hole or nothing at all beneath the waterline.
What You Can Do Without a Permit
Texas Water Code Section 11.142 lets a riparian landowner build a dam or reservoir on their own property storing up to 200 acre-feet of water for domestic and livestock purposes without a permit.3State of Texas. Texas Water Code 11.142 – Permit Exemptions Domestic and livestock means household water, watering your animals, and similar personal needs. Commercial operations are not covered.
The 200 acre-foot cap has some give. If heavy rain pushes your reservoir temporarily over the limit, you remain exempt so long as the 12-month average stays at or below 200 acre-feet.3State of Texas. Texas Water Code 11.142 – Permit Exemptions The moment you start irrigating commercial crops or running water through an industrial process, you are outside the exemption and need a permit, no matter how long your family has held the land.
When You Need a TCEQ Permit
Any use of state surface water beyond the domestic and livestock exemption requires a permit from the TCEQ. Texas Water Code Section 11.121 is explicit: no one may appropriate state water or begin building infrastructure to store or divert it without TCEQ authorization.4State of Texas. Texas Water Code 11.121 – Appropriation Required That covers commercial irrigation, industrial cooling, municipal supply, and any other non-exempt purpose. A permit specifies exactly how much water you can take, when you can take it, and where you can use it.
Permits run on a “first in time, first in right” basis under Water Code Section 11.027. During a drought or other shortage, the TCEQ’s executive director can suspend or adjust junior rights so senior permit holders get their full allotment, and the agency can order newer users to stop diverting entirely. Wholesale suppliers must include contract provisions requiring pro rata curtailment during shortages, consistent with Water Code Section 11.039.5Texas Public Law. Texas Water Code 11.039 – Distribution of Water During Shortage
The penalties for ignoring the permit requirement are steep. Diverting water without authorization or violating permit conditions carries administrative penalties of up to $5,000 per day, with each day counted as a separate violation.6State of Texas. Texas Water Code 11.0842 – Administrative Penalty A few weeks of unpermitted pumping can generate a six-figure penalty before you ever see a courtroom.
Who Can Use the Water Flowing Past Your Land
Whether the public can legally float, fish, or wade through water on your property depends on navigability, and Texas uses two separate tests.
A stream is “navigable by statute” if its bed retains an average width of 30 feet from the mouth upstream.7State of Texas. Texas Natural Resources Code 21.001 – Definitions The measurement covers the entire bed between the banks, not just the wet portion on a given day. A stream that goes dry seasonally still qualifies if the bed averages 30 feet wide, and short narrower segments do not defeat navigability as long as the overall average holds.8Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Navigability
A stream is also “navigable in fact” if it can actually support watercraft for commercial or recreational travel, regardless of bed width. Both categories carry the same consequence: the state owns the bed, and the public may use the water for fishing, boating, swimming, and similar activities.8Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Navigability
You cannot block public passage. Texas Water Code Section 11.096 bars anyone from obstructing navigation on a navigable stream with dams, bridges, or other structures, or even by felling trees into the channel.9Texas Public Law. Texas Water Code 11.096 – Obstruction of Navigable Streams An unauthorized structure in a navigable waterway is a purpresture that the state can order removed, and obstructing a public passageway is a Class B misdemeanor.10Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Private Uses, Obstructions, Bridges and Dams
Trespass works the other direction too. Someone who leaves the navigable waterway and walks onto private land above the gradient boundary can be charged with criminal trespass. Trespassing on agricultural land within 100 feet of the boundary is a Class C misdemeanor with a fine up to $500. Standard criminal trespass is a Class B misdemeanor carrying up to $2,000 in fines and 180 days in jail. If the trespasser is armed, it escalates to a Class A misdemeanor, up to $4,000 and a year in jail.11Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Criminal Trespass
How Your Boundary Moves When the Water Moves
Rivers and creeks shift. Texas treats gradual and sudden changes very differently, and confusing them can cost you acreage.
When a stream shifts slowly through erosion or sediment deposit, the property boundary moves with it. If erosion eats away at your bank over years, you lose that land. If sediment builds up on your side through accretion, you gain it. The same holds for reliction, where water permanently recedes and exposes new dry land. The boundary follows the water as long as the change was slow enough that you could not notice it happening.
Avulsion is the opposite. When a flood or storm suddenly carves a new channel, the legal boundary stays where it was. If a navigable stream abandons its old bed and cuts a new one, the state owns the new bed, but your boundary line does not jump to the new channel. You also cannot manufacture accretion by dumping fill or redirecting sediment onto submerged land and then claim ownership of the raised ground.
Flooding Your Neighbor
Texas Water Code Section 11.086 makes it unlawful to divert or impound the natural flow of surface water in a way that floods or damages a neighbor’s property. It applies to riparian and non-riparian landowners alike. Texas follows the civil law rule: a landowner who increases runoff or redirects drainage and causes flooding is liable for the damage. An injured neighbor can seek repair costs, displacement expenses, and related losses, and can pursue injunctive relief to stop the diversion.
This comes up constantly when owners build berms, regrade their land, or install culverts that redirect stormwater. The statute reaches both intentional diversions and situations where you simply let an existing impoundment keep causing overflow. Before earthwork near a waterway or drainage path, bring in an engineer who understands both the terrain and the legal exposure.
Groundwater Is a Separate System
One of the biggest misconceptions in Texas water law is assuming that riparian surface water rights carry over to groundwater. They do not. Texas governs groundwater under the rule of capture, a completely separate framework. You can pump water from beneath your property even if doing so depletes your neighbor’s well.
Groundwater conservation districts add a regulatory layer on top of the rule of capture. Drawing authority from Texas Water Code Chapter 36, these local districts can impose well-spacing requirements, production limits, and aggregate withdrawal caps. They cannot take away your ownership of groundwater, but they can regulate how much and how fast you pump. A surface water permit from the TCEQ says nothing about what you can pump from underground, and a groundwater district permit says nothing about what you can take from the stream.
Federal Clean Water Act Permits
Federal regulation reaches riparian activity too. Under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, discharging dredged or fill material into navigable waters or wetlands requires a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 33 USC 1344 – Permits for Dredged or Fill Material Fill material covers anything that replaces water with dry land or changes the bottom elevation, including rock, soil, sand, and construction debris.
Normal farming activities like plowing, seeding, and minor drainage on existing cropland are generally exempt. Building a dock, filling a wetland to expand your yard, or dredging a channel will almost certainly require either an individual permit or coverage under a nationwide permit. The Corps will deny a permit when a less damaging alternative exists. The definition of which waters fall under federal jurisdiction has changed repeatedly over the past decade, and a new proposed rule released in late 2025 would further narrow the definition to exclude features that flow only in response to individual rain events. Until a final rule takes effect, call the Corps district office covering your property before starting any work in or near water.