Our Watershed
Lower Galveston Bay Watershed
Bayou City Waterkeeper works across the Lower Galveston Bay Watershed to protect the wetlands, floodplains, forests, prairies, and waterways that connect our communities to Galveston Bay. Our goal is a region where everyone can benefit from clean, safe, and thriving waters.
The watershed shown on the adjacent map spans portions of ten counties: Austin, Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Jefferson, Liberty, Montgomery, and Waller. It includes an interconnected network of rivers, bayous, creeks, storm drains, and smaller watersheds that ultimately flow toward Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
What is a watershed?
A watershed is an area of land where water drains to a common destination. If you are outside, you are standing in one.
When rain falls across the Houston region, it may soak into the soil, collect in wetlands, or travel across the land into a creek or bayou. In developed areas, roads, parking lots, rooftops, and other hard surfaces prevent water from soaking into the ground. Instead, runoff moves quickly through streets, ditches, and storm drains, often flowing directly into local waterways without being treated.
Along the way, that water can carry trash, bacteria, oil, chemicals, and other pollution into our bayous and ultimately Galveston Bay. When too much water moves through the watershed too quickly, it can also overwhelm drainage systems and contribute to flooding.
One connected watershed, different experiences
Although water connects the region, people do not experience its benefits and risks equally. Some communities face greater exposure to flooding, sewage pollution, industrial hazards, and decades of underinvestment in water infrastructure. BCWK’s Water Justice Zones help us focus our work in places where these challenges overlap and where residents are leading efforts for change.
The watershed also contains Critical Wetlands that store and slow floodwaters, filter pollution, provide wildlife habitat, and support the overall health of Galveston Bay. Protecting these landscapes is essential to building a safer and more resilient region.
What happens on the land affects the water, and what happens upstream can shape conditions for communities and ecosystems many miles downstream. Protecting the Lower Galveston Bay Watershed therefore requires us to see its waterways, habitats, infrastructure, and communities as parts of one interconnected system.