Water use in Douglas County

310 points of diversion — 0.5% of the Kansas file — reporting 900,517 acre-feet in 2023.

310Points

900,5172023, acre-feet

4,482Acres irrigated

88Reporting use

What the series actually shows — Douglas County

Reported use here peaked in 2020 at 2,419,676 acre-feet and bottomed in 1993 at 14,800. That swing is rainfall, not policy: a wet year needs less pumping than a dry one, and any two years picked from this table can be made to say almost anything.

Comparing decades instead: the last ten years average 1,657,471 acre-feet a year against 587,471 in the first ten — higher. And the number of points reporting any use moved from 65 to 88: the count of straws in the ground barely changes, whatever the year does to the volume.

Reported use in Douglas County, year by year. « Points reporting » counts those returning more than nought — a 0 is not a finding, see below.
Year	Acre-feet	Acres irrigated	Points reporting
1990	18,575	1,747	65
1991	17,888	1,955	67
1992	16,130	1,555	61
1993	14,800	1,202	53
1994	16,164	1,783	64
1995	16,436	1,677	59
1996	1,388,852	1,417	57
1997	1,371,926	1,710	62
1998	1,449,228	1,759	69
1999	1,564,710	1,650	68
2000	1,516,342	1,676	70
2001	1,138,616	1,636	67
2002	880,452	1,814	71
2003	794,750	1,958	67
2004	897,633	1,604	69
2005	849,124	1,993	74
2006	699,194	2,007	71
2007	842,184	2,089	68
2008	851,141	2,322	69
2009	1,017,385	1,779	65
2010	1,113,778	2,434	65
2011	1,209,225	2,587	77
2012	889,053	2,564	80
2013	960,792	2,959	75
2014	1,010,737	3,148	79
2015	1,174,334	2,946	76
2016	2,049,853	3,424	79
2017	1,975,959	3,599	75
2018	1,772,758	3,981	89
2019	1,626,850	4,467	80
2020	2,419,676	4,785	84
2021	2,046,700	4,153	84
2022	1,597,324	4,423	87
2023	900,517	4,482	88

Where the water comes from

Source	Points	Share
groundwater — a well	211	68.1%
surface water — a river, stream or reservoir	99	31.9%

Which management district

District	Points	Share
Outside any district	310	100.0%

⚠️ What a zero here does not mean

222 of the 310 points in Douglas County report 0 acre-feet for 2023, and 284 show five or more successive years at 0 in this file.

A 0 in this file is not a finding. There are no blanks in the usage columns — every point carries a number for every year — so a nil return, a point that did not yet exist, and a report never filed all read the same. Kansas fines non-filing (USD 250 per file, USD 1,000 and suspension after 1 June), which is exactly why a missing report looks like a quiet year.

Kansas does terminate a water right after five successive years without beneficial use — K.S.A. 82a-718 — but only without due and sufficient cause, and only after a hearing before the chief engineer with 30 days’ notice. Four causes are recognised in K.A.R. 5-7-1, including adequate rainfall and water being unavailable at the source, and enrolment in the water rights conservation programme counts as one. A run of zeros here is a reason to check, never a conclusion.

Buying or defending irrigated ground in Douglas County?

310 points of diversion sit in Douglas County, reporting 900,517 acre-feet in 2023. What a right is actually worth turns on how much it has been used and on whether it can be defended — questions this site cannot answer for a particular file. Tell us where and we pass the request to Kansas water lawyers and consultants.

We recommend nobody and we are nobody's agent. We have no arrangement with any firm today — we are collecting these requests in order to go and find them. What we do with this.

The points, largest first

Douglas County, ordered by reported use in 2023. The last column counts the longest run of years at 0 in this file — a fact about the file, not a finding about the right.
Point	County	Source	2023 (AF)	10-yr avg	Acres 2023	Longest run of 0
76439	Douglas	surface	805,446	1,158,655	0	21
30488	Douglas	surface	80,589	483,905	0	6
26957	Douglas	ground	4,981	5,141	0	0
38313	Douglas	surface	4,005	4,690	0	0
28824	Douglas	surface	493	66	0	15
65949	Douglas	surface	287	124	0	19
77240	Douglas	ground	282	108	0	28
76654	Douglas	ground	259	58	220	23
84295	Douglas	ground	223	246	0	25
4261	Douglas	surface	197	145	0	2
28117	Douglas	ground	193	177	0	7
68274	Douglas	ground	174	188	0	13
77239	Douglas	ground	171	74	0	28
61291	Douglas	ground	141	164	0	10
61268	Douglas	ground	141	126	0	8
73953	Douglas	ground	117	119	128	19
65575	Douglas	ground	114	90	295	13
87024	Douglas	surface	113	65	338	29
69804	Douglas	ground	111	125	0	14
85949	Douglas	ground	110	34	152	27
88786	Douglas	ground	110	17	79	31
77238	Douglas	ground	106	52	0	28
35492	Douglas	ground	93	44	0	6
11153	Douglas	ground	93	87	0	2
88877	Douglas	ground	84	14	134	32
78795	Douglas	ground	83	100	0	21
51401	Douglas	ground	79	92	0	0
70256	Douglas	ground	70	35	76	16
88876	Douglas	ground	68	7	134	33
87734	Douglas	ground	67	23	105	29
67773	Douglas	ground	66	50	140	15
83032	Douglas	surface	66	52	120	26
81530	Douglas	ground	64	29	150	27
30583	Douglas	ground	60	46	210	0
86168	Douglas	ground	56	48	78	27
83213	Douglas	ground	56	76	88	24
76641	Douglas	ground	54	37	48	19
81349	Douglas	ground	52	21	55	24
87681	Douglas	ground	52	18	0	29
73622	Douglas	ground	52	66	192	19
66686	Douglas	ground	51	55	0	12
62104	Douglas	ground	49	39	100	9
11742	Douglas	ground	49	34	90	0
80967	Douglas	surface	47	45	136	23
89943	Douglas	ground	44	4	44	33
10540	Douglas	ground	41	36	45	1
84915	Douglas	ground	38	27	70	26
86622	Douglas	ground	37	13	82	29
84330	Douglas	ground	36	57	0	29
35028	Douglas	ground	34	36	126	0
82679	Douglas	surface	31	13	100	28
65105	Douglas	ground	29	20	62	12
61967	Douglas	ground	26	13	56	29
66744	Douglas	ground	26	18	60	13
29180	Douglas	ground	25	19	60	9
31948	Douglas	ground	25	23	0	0
73228	Douglas	ground	24	32	75	17
37463	Douglas	ground	24	43	96	1
24495	Douglas	ground	23	54	78	9
36255	Douglas	ground	22	11	0	0
26153	Douglas	ground	20	26	63	1
68343	Douglas	ground	19	15	0	14
15395	Douglas	ground	18	24	0	0
17140	Douglas	ground	18	23	0	8
68344	Douglas	ground	17	13	0	14
81435	Douglas	surface	16	9	130	29
10013	Douglas	ground	15	13	110	1
74053	Douglas	surface	14	2	0	32
22214	Douglas	ground	13	14	0	3
5702	Douglas	ground	13	7	18	3
19241	Douglas	ground	13	15	0	11
25528	Douglas	surface	12	15	0	4
60493	Douglas	ground	10	8	0	9
82551	Douglas	ground	10	37	0	24
87033	Douglas	surface	9	3	0	28
2771	Douglas	ground	8	7	0	8
2019	Douglas	ground	7	5	122	10
10172	Douglas	ground	7	20	0	9
39955	Douglas	ground	7	14	0	0
33404	Douglas	ground	4	5	0	11
88621	Douglas	surface	3	0	0	33
67027	Douglas	ground	3	9	0	12
14513	Douglas	ground	2	51	0	3
88506	Douglas	ground	2	0	10	31
72522	Douglas	ground	1	1	3	17
38657	Douglas	ground	1	0	4	8
44611	Douglas	ground	0	24	0	2
77801	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	21
1304	Douglas	ground	0	57	0	3
1769	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	34
3025	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	25
4128	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	18
4874	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	9
5122	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	34
5491	Douglas	surface	0	0	0	34
5595	Douglas	surface	0	0	0	20
5625	Douglas	surface	0	0	0	34
5823	Douglas	surface	0	0	0	34
5886	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	34
6782	Douglas	surface	0	0	0	34
6837	Douglas	surface	0	0	0	24
8187	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	21
8461	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	34
8888	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	29
9369	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	34
9554	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	34
9907	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	34
10887	Douglas	ground	0	59	0	2
11206	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	34
11831	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	31
11979	Douglas	surface	0	0	0	34
11988	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	22
12460	Douglas	ground	0	2	0	4
13706	Douglas	surface	0	0	0	34
13709	Douglas	surface	0	0	0	34
14019	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	24
14257	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	31
14560	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	16
14720	Douglas	surface	0	0	0	26
15245	Douglas	ground	0	0	0	33

By source in Douglas County

groundwater — a well — Douglas County 211

Counties with a comparable file

Greeley 367
Marshall 359
Trego 352
Riley 347
Lane 334
Wabaunsee 312
Osborne 311
Marion 298
Johnson 297
Smith 293
Jefferson 290
Barber 289
Rooks 284

Neighbours by the size of their file, not a ranking: the list slides with the county, so each of the 73 county pages is reachable from the others. All of them.