Arizona · articles
Arizona water questions
Each article takes one question and answers it in general: what the law says, which Arizona records hold the answer, and which report question answers it for a parcel. Every statute is cited, and every figure gives its source and the date it was counted.
- Counties What the water records show in each Arizona county, on a map.
- Stream network Every mapped stream in the state, with designated habitat.
- 01 Whether supply is assured
Which supply rule reaches this ground
Whether lots here can be sold depends on a determination somebody has to hold, and which determination that is depends on where the land sits.
Read this →120,368 wells inside an AMA - 02 Wells
What a well registration does not tell you
Arizona’s well registry is deep, public, and full of rows that do not mean what they appear to.
Read this →51,756 canceled or superseded - 03 Records and method
Why the boundaries are the hard part
A report reads records from many agencies that share no identifier. These are the places where the joining is done.
Read this →62,824 carry no depth at all - 04 Land ownership
Three quarters of Arizona is not for sale
Almost every statistic about Arizona water quotes a denominator that includes ground nobody can buy. The market is a quarter the size it looks.
Read this →75 nobody can buy - 05 What the court is deciding
A court has been deciding who owns Arizona’s water since the 1970s
Seven in ten of the sections anybody can buy sit inside a general stream adjudication that has not concluded. Whatever it eventually decides will bind the ground.
Read this →70 of buyable sections - 06 What is pending
What is being asked of Arizona’s aquifers right now
Every other record in Arizona is retrospective. One is not: the queue of applications sitting in front of the state today.
Read this →539,011 acre-feet a year requested in total
For one parcel
What applies to a particular parcel is settled by the records filed against it. Search a parcel to see the free Land summary for its section.
Search an addressNot legal advice, a title search or an appraisal. These pages describe Arizona records and law in general. A decision about a particular property should be made with the underlying documents.