Arizona ยท county water record

Water in Mohave County

What the state and federal record says about water here, before you look at any particular piece of ground. Every finding names the agency it came from.

  • 15,717 Wells on record across 13,609 square miles
  • 398 ft Well depth middle value across 1,833 of 13,609 square miles
  • 372 ft Depth to water middle value across 65 of 13,609 square miles

Point at any square mile to read what is on it. Hover the maps below to compare them.

Mohave County by the square mile

Every finding on this page is one number for the whole county. These are the same records placed on the ground they came from.

Wells on record. Every well ADWR has a record of, exempt and non-exempt together.

  • none on record (bare ground)
  • up to 1
  • 2
  • 3 to 4
  • 5 to 10
  • 11 to 40
  • over 40

13,609 surveyed sections, drawn 3 by 3 miles to a square. The shading is scaled against every county in Arizona, so a colour means the same thing on any of these pages. The outline is the county boundary from the Census Bureau: ground inside the line and outside the shading is ground nobody has drilled, filed on or addressed. Aerial imagery is the USGS National Map.

  1. Stands out

    The water here stands a long way below the surface

    The water table sits 372 feet down in the typical square mile, against 150 ft across the state. That is not the depth of the hole, it is where the water stands in it, and it sets the pump, the lift and the power bill for as long as the well runs.

    ADWR groundwater level change 1 of 15 counties

    372 ft here 1st of 15
    42 ft372 ft

    One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.

  2. Stands out

    Wells here come in weak

    The typical well makes 12 gallons a minute, against 20 gpm across the state. A household needs roughly 5 to 10, so this is liveable and it will not support irrigation, livestock at scale, or a second home on the same well.

    ADWR wells registry 1 of 15 counties

    12 gpm here 1st of 15
    12 gpm65 gpm

    One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.

  3. Worth knowing

    The water table here is falling faster than it used to

    Twenty years of monitoring show -1.5 feet of change and the last ten show -2.2. Half the record has produced more than half the drop, so the decline is steepening rather than levelling off. A well drilled to a depth that worked ten years ago has less margin than the twenty-year figure suggests.

    ADWR groundwater level change 2 of 10 counties

    -0.1 ft/yr here 2nd of 10
    -0.2 ft/yr0.4 ft/yr

    One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.

  4. Context

    Wells here have to go a long way down

    The typical well is 398 feet deep, across 15,717 wells on record. Drilling is priced by the foot and the casing with it, so depth is the first line of any estimate for putting water on raw land, and it is the number a seller is least likely to volunteer.

    ADWR wells registry 6 of 15 counties

    398 ft here 6th of 15
    152 ft580 ft

    One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.

  5. Context

    Nearly every monitored well here is falling

    72% of the 99 wells ADWR has monitored for twenty years are declining rather than recovering. This counts wells, not feet: a county can be losing only a foot a year and still have almost every well in it pointing the same way, which is what says the drawdown is regional rather than one heavy pumper.

    ADWR groundwater level change 8 of 15 counties

    72% here 8th of 15
    state 72% 26%88%

    One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.

  6. Worth knowing

    Parcels here are large

    The typical parcel is 120 acres. Size is the reason the water question is worth asking: a large parcel with no water is a large parcel you cannot do anything with.

    County assessor parcel records 4 of 15 counties

    120 ac here 4th of 15
    3.7 ac320 ac

    One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.

This is the county. Your question is probably a property.

None of the above is about a particular parcel. Water is not parcel-shaped: the ditch serving the ground runs through other people's land and the senior right that curtails it sits somewhere else, which is why the state files by survey section rather than by property. Check an address and you get the square mile it sits in, with the wells, the rights and what was actually diverted.

Check a property in Mohave County