Mapping the Southern Ogallala Aquifer in Texas

Situated on the western Great Plains of the United States, the Ogallala Aquifer supports one of the nation’s most agriculturally productive regions. Throughout the High Plains, a subregion of the Great Plains, water drawn from the aquifer is widely used for irrigated agriculture, livestock production, and municipal water. To better understand and conserve this important groundwater resource, the Ogallala Aquifer Program was developed as a research initiative funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service.

The map series includes 620 maps that show the saturated thickness of the aquifer by county for each year from 1990 to 2004. Through analyzing these maps, graphs were created to portray changes in the average saturated thickness and changes in the available water in storage over time. When overlaid on satellite imagery, the results show that intensive center pivot irrigation has developed where the aquifer is thick. Moreover, the results show that these areas closely correspond to the greatest drawdown of water.

Courtesy of Lucia Barbato and Kevin Mulligan, Center for Geospatial Technology, Texas Tech University.