Place yourself in the heart of the Great Plains, say, somewhere in the Texas Panhandle. A long, lonely stretch of interstate extends before you. Prairie grass and planted wheat cover the landscape out to the horizon, flat as a table in all directions.
But it’s not truly flat. Even on these plains there are low spots, the ground sloping almost imperceptibly toward slight, bowl-shaped depressions where the infrequent rains of this semi-arid environment collect. These are playas: wetlands that come and go, providing an oasis for life in an otherwise desiccated place.
When wet, playas harbor a plethora of amphibians, waterfowl, dragonflies and other species. But playas don’t just support the lives of birds and toads; they also support humans. Playas replenish the Ogallala Aquifer, a 948-trillion-gallon underground body of water that underpins agriculture in an eight-state region. Though these little wetlands comprise only 2 percent of the land area in the southern plains, they are the primary source of recharge for the Ogallala, which in turn sustains irrigation of the High Plains, thereby providing one-fifth of the food and fiber consumed in the U.S.
But this aquifer is being depleted. Research published in 2020 suggests that in many areas, without irrigation, these dry lands will not continue to sustain agriculture. In some places, the dry-up has already happened. “There are ghost towns in the southern High Plains right now — today,” says Bill Mullican, a former executive at the Texas Water Development Board. Playas and the recharge they provide are one of the few things safeguarding $20 billion in crop value and the future of High Plains agriculture.
