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Water in Yavapai County
What the state and federal record says about water across Yavapai County. Each figure names the agency it came from.
Can I drill a well here?
Yes, an exempt well of 35 gallons a minute or less
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Outside an Active Management Area
An exempt well (35 gallons a minute or less) is allowed for any use but irrigation, with no yearly cap. Domestic use includes growing plants on under two acres.
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Inside an Active Management Area
An exempt well is allowed, but use other than household and stock watering is capped at 10 acre-feet a year.
- Active Management Areas here: Phoenix AMA, Prescott AMA.
- Every well needs a notice of intention to drill filed with ADWR and a licensed driller. On five acres or less the county health authority also signs off the site plan, and no well may sit within 100 feet of a septic system.
What has actually been permitted in Yavapai County
- 4,963exempt wells registered since 2015
- 5,706production wells of every kind since 2015
- 440feet, the typical exempt well depth
- 236feet down to water, typically
ADWR wells registry Decided by: ADWR, on the notice of intention to drill.
- 42,669 Wells on record across 8,271 square miles
- 300 ft Well depth middle value across 2,205 of 8,271 square miles
- 152 ft Depth to water middle value across 152 of 8,271 square miles
Point at any square mile to read what is on it. Hover the maps below to compare them.
Yavapai County by the square mile
Each figure below is one number for the whole county. The map places the same records on the ground, square mile by square mile.
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
8,271 surveyed sections, drawn 3 by 3 miles to a square. The shading is scaled against every county in Arizona, so a color 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.
Most wells here are exempt domestic wells
74% of wells are exempt, meaning 35 gallons a minute or less for a household, against 52% in the median county. Exempt wells are quick to permit and they are also the first to go dry when a larger neighbour draws the aquifer down, because they carry no protected right against it.
ADWR wells registry 1 of 15 counties
74% here 1st of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Wells here may be treated as pumping the river
0.7% of the county lies in a subflow zone, where a well is legally drawing surface water and falls under the adjudication rather than under groundwater rules.
Arizona general stream adjudications 2 of 9 counties
0.7% here 2nd of 9 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Wells here come in weak
The typical well makes 15 gallons a minute, against 20 gpm in the median county. 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 2 of 15 counties
15 gpm here 2nd of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
A lot of this county is land with nothing built on it
44% of the county holds parcels with no situs address, against 28% in the median county, meaning no building with a number on the door. This is raw land country, which is the market, and it also means few neighbours to share a road, a line or a well with.
County assessor parcel records 2 of 15 counties
44% here 2nd of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
The water table here is falling faster than it used to
Twenty years of monitoring show -6.1 feet of change and the last ten show -4.1. 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 4 of 10 counties
-0.1 ft/yr here 4th of 10 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Most monitored wells here are falling rather than recovering
74% of the 276 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 6 of 15 counties
74% here 6th of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
Wells here have to go a long way down
The typical well is 300 feet deep, across 42,669 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 10 of 15 counties
300 ft here 10th of 15 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
A court has already adjudicated the water over part of this county
6.9% of this county sits inside a decreed area, under 5 mapped court decrees. An adjudication is a court deciding who owns what water on a stream and in what order, and once entered it governs. On an adjudicated stream the decree, rather than a well permit, is what says whether there is water to use.
ADWR decreed area boundaries 3 of 10 counties
6.9% here 3rd of 10 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
The land here is sinking where the aquifer was drawn down
22 mapped subsidence features and no confirmed fissures yet. Subsidence is what precedes a fissure, and it is worth knowing about before it becomes one.
AZGS earth fissure and subsidence mapping 9 of 9 counties
22 here 9th of 9 One bar per Arizona county from lowest to highest. Point at one to name it.
The irrigation water here is already spoken for
672 grandfathered irrigation rights are recorded in this county. Inside an AMA, ground that was already being irrigated in 1980 kept the right to go on doing it and no new irrigation right can be created. New ground does not get water by asking for it.
672 here The bar is the whole county and the fill is this county's share.
This county is being platted into subdivisions
6,201 platted subdivisions are recorded here. Inside an AMA each one had to prove a hundred-year assured water supply before a lot could be sold; outside one, it did not, and the developer only had to disclose that fact.
6,201 here The bar is the whole county and the fill is this county's share.
For one parcel in Yavapai County
The figures above describe the whole county. The Land, Development and Rights reports answer for one parcel: what water conveys, whether a household well needs only a notice, and whether the county requires an adequate water supply to split it. Each answer gives the evidence within a mile and who decides.
Search an address in Yavapai County