Dauphin County, PA Water Table Trend
Dauphin County, PA: what the water table is actually doing
Dauphin County's representative monitoring well shows depth to water rising, getting shallower over time, a fitted trend of 1.1 ft per decade over 24 years of readings.
One well stands in for Dauphin County's whole aquifer here, the honest simplification every page on this site carries.
What the well actually measured
The most recent reading put water 17.3 ft below land surface. Readings span 2002-11-15 to 2026-08-04, 202 measurements from USGS well USGS-402255076422001 (Da 868 Dauphin County Observation Well), part of the National Water Information System. The qualifying bar and the OLS fit behind this trend are documented in the methodology guide.
Where Dauphin County ranks
Of the 1,449 US counties with a usable trend, Dauphin County ranks 237th from fastest-rising to fastest-declining, 1 is the fastest-rising water table measured, 1449 the fastest-declining. About 293,029 people live in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. See the fastest-moving counties guide for how Dauphin County stacks up against the most extreme cases nationally.
A dropping table says nothing about water quality
Whether Dauphin County's water table is rising or falling is independent of what's actually in the water. Depletion can concentrate naturally-occurring minerals, so it's worth checking directly with a water test rather than assuming a depth trend says anything about quality.