A Hydro-Economic Approach for Quantifying Well Performance Thresholds and Recoverable Groundwater Yields in Texas

2023-09-10T23:41:46+00:00

Groundwater overdraft may increase the depth of the potentiometric surface, or depth-to-water, over time; reducing potentiometric head available to support well operation and increasing the cost of pumping. These hydro-economic impacts create well failure thresholds. Understanding these impacts and thresholds is a critical issue for groundwater management but tools to assess them are not widely available or established. Therefore, an analytical model developed in this study quantifies changes in well performance with depth-to-water, calculates well failure thresholds, and estimates feasible storage yields for variable uses, wells, and aquifers. The model is developed and tested using both a single well and a regional analysis of the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer in Texas, U.S.A., where a contemporary groundwater dataset is available and management is depth-to-water-based. Results reveal how storage conditions drive well performance and suggest that performance in shallow and unconfined settings may be more limited by operational thresholds than affordability thresholds, while performance in deep and confined settings may be inversely limited. At the tested parameters for a single well, failure to account for drawdown would overestimate operationally feasible yields by 98% – 108% and economically feasible yields by 24%. The model could directly support manager, stakeholder, and policymaker consideration of desired future conditions.

Case Study of Emerging Groundwater Management Issues at the Forefront of Large-scale Production from a Confined Aquifer: The Vista Ridge Project

2023-10-17T23:13:17+00:00

Continued population growth, increased demands for water and declining water availability are statewide water concerns in Texas. The development and movement of water from where it is to where it is needed brings with it benefits to the receiving area and concerns for the area of origin. The Vista Ridge project serves as an on-point example and case study of such concerns and processes that can mitigate, in part, negative impacts that are informative to other Texans who will soon be facing similar pressures.. Impacts on the water levels in existing wells made the Vista Ridge Project a focus of significant public discussion in 2022, including Texas House and Senate interim session hearings. This paper spotlights groundwater management issues prominent in the Vista Ridge Project that will likely be of concern with other Texas groundwater projects in the near future. These issues involve well mitigation, significant impacts from groundwater production across groundwater conservation district boundaries, meaningful consideration of nine factors in Texas Water Code §36.108(d), the balance between limiting groundwater production, development of fair share doctrines, the role of the Texas Water Development Board in the

Texas Water Journal

A Hydro-Economic Approach for Quantifying Well Performance Thresholds and Recoverable Groundwater Yields in Texas

Case Study of Emerging Groundwater Management Issues at the Forefront of Large-scale Production from a Confined Aquifer: The Vista Ridge Project