Declining water tables are causing wells to run dry in California, but the prevalence and spatial distribution of wells that have run dry is not known beyond anecdotal and voluntary reports. Here, we apply a new, simple and measurement‐driven method to calculate a localized water table; we show, for the first time using observations, that up to one‐in‐five wells now runs dry in California's Central Valley. The spatial distribution of wells identified as having dried up on the basis of our new methodology replicates hot‐spots of wells identified as having run dry in a voluntary reporting system, while also capturing impacts on groundwater wells that have not reportedly run dry. We assess rates of drilling throughout the Central Valley and find, surprisingly, that domestic wells are being drilled deeper at a rate that exceeds agricultural wells across much of the central Central Valley. Because new groundwater wells are costly (i.e., $10,000s to $100,000s), we suggest explicitly considering dry wells in groundwater sustainability planning to protect homes and farms from the loss of access to reliable water supplies in the future.

中文翻译：

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在最近的干旱期间，加利福尼亚中央谷地的地下水井干dry了

地下水位下降导致加利福尼亚州的油井干dry，但是据传闻和自愿报告，还没有发现干油井的普遍性和空间分布。在这里，我们采用一种新的，简单的，以测量为驱动力的方法来计算局部水位。我们首次使用观察结果表明，现在加利福尼亚中央谷地中多达五分之二的油井正在枯竭。根据我们的新方法，被确定为枯竭的井的空间分布复制了在自愿报告系统中被确定为已枯竭的井的热点，同时还捕获了对据报道尚未枯竭的地下水井的影响。我们评估了整个中央山谷的钻探速度，令人惊讶的是，整个中部中央山谷大部分地区的家庭用井的钻探速度超过了农业用井的钻探速度。由于新的地下水井价格昂贵（即10,000至100,000美元），因此我们建议在地下水可持续性规划中明确考虑使用干井，以保护家庭和农场，避免将来失去可靠的供水。