Metropolitan well depths and the falling water table
- Water for industry
- Industrial water, wells and discharges
- Audited
Wells in the metropolitan area run from 25 to more than 600 m deep (a Funcagua estimate cited by Agencia Ocote, 6 Aug 2024), and EMPAGUA today drills wells 'at least 1,800 feet deep' (Prensa Libre, 6 Jul 2026). In the northern part of the valley the water table is falling at an 'average rate of approximately 9 m/year': 8 m/year in Lavarreda-Rodeo, 11 in Vista Hermosa and Canalitos and 7 in the North sector, across 32 monitored wells with 4-10 years of records (a 2013 ERIS-USAC study). The operating consequence is re-drilling and higher pumping costs. The audit corrected the attribution of the depth figure (previously to ERIS-USAC, which does not contain it).
The research is written in English; quoted figures, source names and the titles of legal instruments stay in the language their source published them in.
Figures
- Profundidad de pozos, área metropolitana
- 25 a >600 m
- Profundidad de los pozos nuevos de EMPAGUA
- al menos 1,800 pies
- Descenso promedio del nivel freático, norte del valle
- ~9 m/año (Lavarreda-Rodeo 8; Vista Hermosa y Canalitos 11; Norte 7)
Caveat
Sources
Organizations named in the answer
Related records
- Absence of a general water law and national extraction fee
- Right to drill a well and ownership of the water (Civil Code)
- Industrial self-supply and the 2,000 wells of Guatemala's valley
- Procedure to drill an industrial well in the metropolitan area
- Cost and regulation of the municipal well-drilling license
- MARN environmental license costs and categories
This layer is research: read from public sources by the archive's own team, every claim cited with the date it was consulted, and audited where it is marked so. It has not entered the verified store — no figure here was fetched back from its source or stamped with a retrieval time — so it wears no red provenance numeral and never mixes with the verified figures.