Watauga County, NC Water Table Trend
Watauga County, NC: what the water table is actually doing
Watauga County's representative monitoring well shows depth to water declining, slower than most declining counties, a fitted trend of 0.5 ft per decade over 19 years of readings.
This is one representative well, not a county-wide survey, the same grain limit every page here discloses.
Watauga County's source well, in detail
Depth to water at the last reading was 29.6 ft below land surface. Readings span 2007-06-28 to 2026-10-14, 47 measurements from USGS well USGS-361646081430401 (Wt-100 Tater Hill Rs Asu-1i Transition Nr Boone,Nc), part of the National Water Information System. The qualifying bar and the OLS fit behind this trend are documented in the methodology guide.
How Watauga County compares nationally
Watauga County sits at rank 969th 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. Watauga County, North Carolina is home to about 54,997 people. See the fastest-moving counties guide for how Watauga County stacks up against the most extreme cases nationally.
If you own a well in Watauga County
A dropping water table means a residential pump has to reach deeper and work harder, which shortens its life. In Watauga County, that trend is real, not assumed: 0.5 ft per decade over 19 years.
Depth and quality are separate questions
This page answers a depth question, not a quality one. A well in Watauga 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.