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In 36 Texas counties, new wells are at least 10% deeper than 20 years ago

Of the 180 Texas counties with at least 30 home wells in both 2003 to 2007 and 2021 to 2025, 36 now drill at least 10% deeper with statistical confidence, and 20 of them 20% or more. The largest change is in Cherokee County, where the median went from 260 to 450 feet (+73%; 113 and 232 wells). Statewide the median barely moved: 260 to 255 feet.

Updated every day from Texas Water Development Board driller reports. Last update: November 11, 2026, using the state file of November 10, 2026.

Download the table (CSV)Sources and how to check it

The figures

Counties drilling deeper
36 of 180
Largest change
Cherokee: +73%
260 to 450 feet
Changed 20% or more
20
No clear change
137 counties
Texas median
260 to 255 feet

County by county

Median depth of home wells in each period. The line shows the median of each year from 2003 to 2025. Tap a heading to sort.

County2003 to 2007 (ft)2021 to 2025 (ft)Change95% interval (ft)Water level change (ft)Wells (then / now)Year by year
Cherokee260450+73%+105 to +240+74113 / 232
Navarro60103+72%+15 to +85+333 / 36
Smith281450+60%+107 to +222+67237 / 230
Anderson295446+51%+60 to +260+71129 / 138
Frio300420+40%+90 to +160+104101 / 165
Wheeler132182+38%+4 to +86+2661 / 44
Karnes292400+37%+65 to +160+24118 / 171
Webb480655+37%+125 to +210+150117 / 36
Uvalde220300+36%+59 to +107+84294 / 217
Burnet260350+35%+72 to +110+1121,284 / 1,513
Shelby205268+31%+33 to +83+10131 / 108
Brown161210+30%+2 to +78+6115 / 68
Llano140180+29%+25 to +45+7792 / 640
Dimmit400505+26%+40 to +200+7569 / 31
Comanche130160+23%+14 to +56+17328 / 364
Hidalgo260320+23%+20 to +85+40167 / 54
Scurry197240+22%+6 to +78—80 / 75
Lampasas284345+22%+30 to +78+30192 / 227
San Patricio165200+21%+20 to +50−4266 / 146
Harrison289350+21%+25 to +88+14258 / 248
Dallam430515+20%+45 to +126+7648 / 60
Austin180210+17%+20 to +35+16699 / 716
Kerr480560+17%+45 to +120+66587 / 572
Walker223260+17%+13 to +57+17367 / 359
Milam380440+16%+2 to +160+20171 / 202
Lynn121140+16%+13 to +41—44 / 261
Blanco364420+15%+26 to +76+51518 / 686
Henderson400460+15%+35 to +160+45235 / 365
Rusk356410+15%+30 to +900170 / 207
Hamilton410470+15%+30 to +84+42281 / 296
Parker210240+14%+20 to +4003,091 / 4,476
Lavaca166189+14%+12 to +33+16631 / 730
Randall310353+14%+34 to +55+391,204 / 2,137
Jasper170190+12%+2 to +350388 / 414
Freestone412460+12%+5 to +116+2578 / 154
Bandera480530+10%+10 to +70+40723 / 599

What this shows and what it doesn't

  • A deeper well can mean a falling water table, a different aquifer, better water quality or simply more reserve.
  • These are wells people chose to drill, not a monitoring network. Where and why people drill changes over time.
  • A county-wide median also moves when new homes are built in a different part of the county, over a different depth.

Questions

Are water wells getting deeper in Texas?

Of the 180 Texas counties with at least 30 home wells in both 2003 to 2007 and 2021 to 2025, 36 now drill at least 10% deeper with statistical confidence, and 20 of them 20% or more. The largest change is in Cherokee County, where the median went from 260 to 450 feet (+73%; 113 and 232 wells). Statewide the median barely moved: 260 to 255 feet.

Which Texas county's wells got deeper the fastest?

Cherokee County: the median home well went from 260 feet in 2003 to 2007 to 450 feet in 2021 to 2025, a change of +73% (95% interval +105 to +240 feet).

Sources you can check

Check it yourself

  1. Download this page's table as a CSV (texas-counties-drilling-deeper-wells.csv): every figure in the text is in it.
  2. Open any county in the table. Its page lists its figures, and each well on its map opens the official report on the state's site.
  3. For the raw data, download the state file from the TWDB link in the sources and keep the wells whose proposed use is Domestic and whose work is a new well or a replacement.
  4. If a figure does not match, write to us with the county and the number: we correct it in the next update and say so.

How we got it

We count new and replacement domestic (home) wells with a valid depth on their report. Monitoring wells, soil borings, injection, geothermal and oilfield wells are left out. A depth under 10 feet or over 5,000 feet is treated as an entry error.

We compare the wells finished in 2003 to 2007 with those finished in 2021 to 2025, in every county with at least 30 wells in each period. The 95% interval for the difference in medians comes from 2,000 bootstrap resamples. A county counts as deeper or shallower only when that interval excludes zero and the change is at least 10%. For the water level we require at least 5 feet and 10%.

The full method · All open data

How to cite this

TerraFunded (2026). "In 36 Texas counties, new wells are at least 10% deeper than 20 years ago." Texas Well Atlas. From the Texas Water Development Board, Submitted Driller's Reports database (state file of November 10, 2026). https://terrafunded.com/wells/findings/texas-counties-drilling-deeper-wells. License CC BY 4.0. Dataset: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24126380.

Free to use with credit under CC BY 4.0. Journalists: write to us for any county's figures.

More findings

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