Conjunctive Use in Sevier River System, Utah

Abstract

The Sevier Desert and Sanpete Valley are two subbasins within the Sevier River System in south‐central Utah in which groundwater is extensively used in conjunction with surface water for irrigation. The conjunctive use has developed more by accident than by deliberate planning. The surface‐water supply in the two areas was basically developed by 1920. Severe droughts in the early 1920s and early 1950s focused attention on groundwater development as a supplemental supply. Well construction gradually increased between the mid‐1940s and 1960 in both basins until the problems of water rights and overdraft essentially halted further development. Groundwater pumpage in both the Sevier Desert and Sanpete Valley has fluctuated inversely with the available surface‐water supplies and climatic conditions. Overdraft has not occurred and the sustained yield of the groundwater basins seems to have been established.