Water use in Gove County

554 points of diversion — 0.9% of the Kansas file — reporting 17,512 acre-feet in 2023.

554Points

17,5122023, acre-feet

23,925Acres irrigated

261Reporting use

What the series actually shows — Gove County

Reported use here peaked in 2002 at 27,027 acre-feet and bottomed in 1993 at 8,012. 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 17,745 acre-feet a year against 18,726 in the first ten — lower. And the number of points reporting any use moved from 265 to 261: the count of straws in the ground barely changes, whatever the year does to the volume.

Reported use in Gove 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	25,744	18,951	265
1991	26,823	19,822	294
1992	11,813	16,785	222
1993	8,012	12,718	176
1994	20,973	19,633	266
1995	21,197	20,098	259
1996	17,957	20,766	266
1997	19,262	21,450	264
1998	18,765	22,318	283
1999	16,718	22,284	268
2000	23,638	23,202	286
2001	20,700	22,064	294
2002	27,027	22,925	291
2003	25,907	23,129	294
2004	23,069	22,916	282
2005	20,592	21,782	271
2006	20,958	21,358	268
2007	18,136	20,426	271
2008	18,603	20,954	268
2009	15,319	19,904	253
2010	19,081	20,063	258
2011	22,525	20,376	266
2012	26,890	20,999	266
2013	21,473	20,871	259
2014	20,901	21,855	270
2015	20,032	22,025	259
2016	17,929	20,870	257
2017	17,813	21,158	259
2018	11,709	21,226	250
2019	11,022	20,613	245
2020	17,032	21,278	258
2021	18,083	22,371	266
2022	25,418	21,894	277
2023	17,512	23,925	261

Where the water comes from

Source	Points	Share
groundwater — a well	539	97.3%
surface water — a river, stream or reservoir	15	2.7%

Which management district

District	Points	Share
Outside any district	292	52.7%
Northwest Kansas GMD 4	262	47.3%

⚠️ What a zero here does not mean

293 of the 554 points in Gove County report 0 acre-feet for 2023, and 370 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 Gove County?

554 points of diversion sit in Gove County, reporting 17,512 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

Gove 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
12814	Gove	ground	377	225	0	0
88016	Gove	ground	314	116	305	30
36100	Gove	ground	305	206	220	0
39802	Gove	ground	305	282	333	1
11320	Gove	ground	232	240	318	0
82221	Gove	ground	232	198	173	23
78560	Gove	ground	215	177	175	21
256	Gove	ground	205	180	209	0
5945	Gove	ground	201	40	140	32
32647	Gove	ground	194	135	120	2
60259	Gove	ground	178	75	142	8
21908	Gove	ground	177	100	127	0
48721	Gove	ground	171	164	166	0
45996	Gove	ground	167	165	167	0
22209	Gove	ground	166	158	150	1
9306	Gove	ground	160	119	150	1
32777	Gove	ground	160	157	214	0
34619	Gove	ground	158	127	120	1
61923	Gove	ground	157	132	220	8
7257	Gove	ground	155	169	147	0
33072	Gove	ground	150	150	146	0
34209	Gove	ground	146	122	0	0
39727	Gove	ground	145	126	124	0
29464	Gove	ground	143	153	240	1
54511	Gove	ground	140	156	110	0
10464	Gove	ground	139	154	116	0
26918	Gove	ground	139	220	100	0
51917	Gove	ground	137	92	94	7
66164	Gove	ground	137	112	164	11
48093	Gove	ground	136	184	160	0
372	Gove	ground	131	160	180	1
148	Gove	ground	128	103	121	1
49871	Gove	ground	128	83	116	1
2107	Gove	ground	125	143	152	0
35636	Gove	ground	125	161	240	0
81031	Gove	ground	125	111	113	23
13981	Gove	ground	123	115	116	0
30354	Gove	ground	120	123	121	1
5762	Gove	ground	118	108	117	15
23852	Gove	ground	118	137	220	1
22983	Gove	ground	117	115	120	1
29889	Gove	ground	117	236	220	0
13283	Gove	ground	115	102	154	2
25343	Gove	ground	112	115	110	0
38281	Gove	ground	111	120	200	7
51469	Gove	ground	111	121	121	0
20319	Gove	ground	110	111	0	2
31861	Gove	ground	110	84	91	1
37708	Gove	ground	110	130	120	0
34863	Gove	ground	109	76	92	9
22933	Gove	ground	107	97	85	1
34176	Gove	ground	107	62	40	0
52464	Gove	ground	107	101	168	0
64984	Gove	ground	105	104	116	11
38338	Gove	ground	105	72	101	1
7729	Gove	ground	103	154	100	0
15387	Gove	ground	102	75	85	1
24491	Gove	ground	102	144	235	0
35159	Gove	ground	101	163	112	7
19900	Gove	ground	101	102	240	0
8906	Gove	ground	100	69	74	0
88938	Gove	ground	98	32	209	31
8916	Gove	ground	98	64	560	0
78601	Gove	ground	98	101	89	21
89775	Gove	ground	98	15	0	32
45679	Gove	ground	96	112	0	4
15188	Gove	ground	96	105	120	4
6169	Gove	ground	95	57	120	1
9998	Gove	ground	95	103	103	0
29475	Gove	ground	95	90	120	1
29961	Gove	ground	95	52	116	5
44383	Gove	ground	95	99	72	1
28948	Gove	ground	92	83	116	4
38001	Gove	ground	91	103	120	0
16651	Gove	ground	90	112	110	0
28626	Gove	ground	90	62	90	1
40486	Gove	ground	90	110	122	0
69620	Gove	ground	89	73	120	13
30250	Gove	ground	89	73	74	1
69404	Gove	ground	89	64	120	13
29503	Gove	ground	88	97	0	0
20896	Gove	ground	88	108	117	0
25518	Gove	ground	87	87	230	0
35755	Gove	ground	86	94	126	1
52836	Gove	ground	86	90	76	1
43150	Gove	ground	84	87	73	1
71536	Gove	ground	84	64	126	15
38019	Gove	ground	83	87	130	1
12066	Gove	ground	82	101	125	0
25184	Gove	ground	82	76	96	0
9298	Gove	ground	81	69	65	1
709	Gove	ground	80	104	124	0
43423	Gove	ground	80	83	95	0
47772	Gove	ground	79	154	100	0
32831	Gove	ground	77	94	87	0
69572	Gove	ground	74	54	0	13
32203	Gove	ground	74	80	53	2
42607	Gove	ground	73	43	90	1
16993	Gove	ground	73	59	73	0
27648	Gove	ground	73	55	64	1
67748	Gove	ground	73	62	78	12
83174	Gove	ground	72	64	61	24
45969	Gove	ground	72	25	70	15
12055	Gove	ground	72	66	120	1
48387	Gove	ground	68	71	0	0
20819	Gove	ground	67	54	120	11
22239	Gove	ground	67	61	102	1
52258	Gove	ground	65	46	90	1
80318	Gove	ground	64	71	58	22
65155	Gove	ground	64	20	0	10
38831	Gove	ground	63	82	111	10
48297	Gove	ground	62	95	61	4
19449	Gove	ground	61	94	125	0
31834	Gove	ground	61	98	59	0
14174	Gove	ground	59	32	120	5
47193	Gove	ground	59	85	179	1
49641	Gove	ground	58	54	120	6
25212	Gove	ground	58	46	132	2
19331	Gove	ground	56	52	70	1
29578	Gove	ground	56	54	50	1

Counties with a comparable file

Phillips 637
Pottawatomie 636
Wallace 621
Morton 601
Shawnee 601
Kingman 599
Rush 558
Kiowa 554
Saline 543
Hamilton 525
Ellis 500
Butler 472
Dickinson 468

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.