Essex County, VA Water Table Trend
Essex County's groundwater trend, from USGS's own readings
Essex County's representative monitoring well shows depth to water declining faster than most declining counties, a fitted trend of 10.1 ft per decade over 27 years of readings.
This is one representative well, not a county-wide survey, the same grain limit every page here discloses.
Essex County's source well, in detail
Depth to water at the last reading was 179.3 ft below land surface. Readings span 1999-09-09 to 2026-08-27, 103 measurements from USGS well USGS-380024076585801 (55n 2), part of the National Water Information System. The qualifying bar and the OLS fit behind this trend are documented in the methodology guide.
How Essex County compares nationally
Essex County sits at rank 1391st of 1,449 ranked counties, ordered rising-to-declining, so a low number means a rising water table and a high one means fast decline. Essex County, Virginia is home to about 10,683 people. See the fastest-moving counties guide for how Essex County stacks up against the most extreme cases nationally.
If you own a well in Essex County
A dropping water table means a residential pump has to reach deeper and work harder, which shortens its life. In Essex County, that trend is real, not assumed: 10.1 ft per decade over 27 years.
Depth and quality are separate questions
This page answers a depth question, not a quality one. A well in Essex County can be stable in depth and still worth testing for quality, or declining and still test clean, the two are measured separately, and only a direct test settles the second one.