City of Austin’s Rain Catcher Pilot Program

Overview

  • Category: Governmental
  • Organization Location: Austin, Texas; Travis County
  • Activity: Financially incentivized rain gardens, cisterns, and rainwater-irrigated street trees on residential properties.

Background

The City of Austin’s Rain Catcher Pilot Program is a collaboration between Watershed Protection, Austin Water, and Development Services. The program installed 117 cisterns ranging from 500 gallons up to 6082 gallons on 40 different properties. This created a network of many small-scale features distributed across multiple locations on diverse properties rather than one centralized stormwater system. Not only did this give the project a participant-centered focus but also helped reduce runoff across the area by capturing much of the stormwater and allowing it to soak into the ground.

2025 Winners: