Water restrictions remain in effect in Alachua County despite a wetter August, as groundwater levels continue to lag after months of below-average rainfall.
2026 has been the seventh-driest year on record so far, with the county in a deficit of over 9 inches of rainfall from January to August compared to average years, according to drought.gov.
The water shortage has been caused by prolonged periods of drought over the past few years, leading to the North Central Florida area pumping more water from our aquifer than we should.
What is confusing about the water shortage, though, is that August was one of the wettest months of the year, per drought.gov. Gainesville resident Pam Van Isacker has taken notice.
“When I go on my walk, I pass by a big pond just north of 8th Ave. I think it's a rainwater-fed pond, and it was really low. I mean, like, very, very low. And in the last month or two, it's really come up quite a lot.”
So, why is the county still announcing water restrictions?
Clay Coarsey, the director of water supply planning and assessment at the St. Johns River Water Management District, compares the aquifer to a savings account.
“It’s like if you went a whole year of spending like crazy out of your savings account…while you're not working. Then, you go back to work for three days, and you’re like, ‘Everything's back to normal,’ no worries whatsoever,” he said.
Coarsey said that people have been using water out of the aquifer during drought periods at the same rate they would during a regular season of rainfall. Pumping water at a normal rate during deficit rainfall conditions created the water shortage Alachua County finds itself in.
“All of our uses for agriculture; our homes, businesses, everything is coming out of that same source,” Alachua County Water Resources Program Manager Stacie Greco said.
“And oftentimes when it's dry, when we're not getting that rain to recharge, is the time when people are actually using more water,” she said. “Agriculture uses more because we're not getting rain for the crops. They need that supplemental irrigation, and the same with people's yards. They might be watering more because we're not getting that rain. So it's kind of a double whammy.”
The continuing drought has created a positive feedback loop. There’s less water, so people’s yards are drying up. To combat this, they use more water. But because residents are running their irrigation more, there’s less water in the aquifer.
Greco said that about 60% of a typical homeowner’s water use, including from such things as dishwashers, sprinklers and showers, occurs outside. “Every time an irrigation system is turned on, on average, it uses over 1,000 gallons of water, which is the same as…doing 37 loads of laundry or taking an eight-hour shower,” she said.
“The vast majority of the water waste that we experience in our district is with residential landscape irrigation,” Coarsey said.
The county has been posting flyers detailing what residents can and cannot do regarding water use.
The county is asking residents to only run irrigation systems once a week and completely eliminate any non-essential outside water use, such as pressure washing.
“What our water shortage plan does is, when we get in these periods of deficit rainfall,” Coarsey said, “it does its best to try and limit unnecessary water use as much as possible so that we can stretch that aquifer savings account out as long as we can until those normal rainfall patterns return.”
“We can't control the weather, right?” Greco said. “What we can control is our use. So that's why we are getting information out, asking everyone to decrease their use. And the biggest use of residents is their yards. So, asking people to turn off those irrigation systems…the rain that we're getting should be enough.”
Van Isacker, who said she is already conscious of her water use, is hopeful that the Alachua County community will work together toward ending the water shortage.
“I take 30-second showers,” she said. “I hand-water things. So…I guess I'm naively just doing my part without thinking too much about how other people are dealing with it. I don't quite know how I and the way I function can make that huge of a difference, but I realize that everybody together, banding together to do what's right, will help.”
Greco and Coarsey said that with a continued uptick in rainfall and residents following water restrictions, the community can get through this drought.
“Alachua County still has some pretty low groundwater levels,” Coarsey said. “About 90% of the time we'd be expecting to have groundwater levels that are higher than what they are in Alachua County. Part of the good news that we've got…is that we're creeping up on our rainfall totals.
As we start to get into shorter days, cooler days, we're gonna have less evaporation and less transpiration.”
“It's great that we're getting this rain,” Greco said. “This rain is helping. But we're still in a deficit.”
