Ogallala Aquifer Refills Over Millennia

The Ogallala Aquifer supplies water to roughly one-quarter of all irrigated land in the United States, but intensive pumping since the late 1940s has significantly drained it. Large-scale extraction expanded after World War II as farmers adopted center-pivot irrigation and engine-powered wells, reducing the aquifer's saturated volume by an estimated 9% since 1950. In its arid sections, nature replaces water at only about 10% of the withdrawal rate, so scientists estimate that an emptied aquifer would take more than 6,000 years to refill naturally.

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