News

Nebraska’s aquifers filling up after third wettest year in ’19, report shows

A report from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln shows irrigation wells across the state had more water in them last year from record rainfall and historic flooding in 2019.

Aaron Young, a geologist with the Nebraska Conservation Survey Division, says the excess moisture caused a significant rise in water levels and should alleviate water shortage concerns for irrigation. “All that water came down and we had all that flooding, that flooding kept the water around on the surface for a while,” Young said. “That allowed the water to make it down to our aquifers. Statewide, we say rises on average in wells about 1.6 feet.”

The 2020 Groundwater-Level Monitoring Report showed 79 percent of the wells had an increase with 55 percent recording a jump of over a foot.

Young tells Brownfield those are positive results because it shows the High Plains Aquifer is filling up. “It’s not immune from depletion,” he says. “Having a good year like this is good news in that it helps offset some of those declines we’ve seen since we started pumping those aquifers,” Young said.

Young said results came from measuring the change in the depth of water from nearly 5,000 wells.