ADWR Dictionary

ADWR Dictionary

ADWR Dictionary

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Safe-yield

A water management goal which attempts to achieve and thereafter maintain a long-term balance between the annual amount of groundwater withdrawn in an AMA and the annual amount of natural and artificial recharge in the AMA

Sanitary sewer

Any pipe or other enclosed conduit that carries, among other substances, any water-carried wastes from residences, commercial buildings, industrial plants or institutions. 

Secondary treatment

The second stage in wastewater treatment that involves both chemical and biological processes. The screened wastewater is passed through a series of holding and aeration tanks and ponds further removing organic and inorganic substances. Disinfecting with chlorine may be included.

Section

In the U.S. Public Land Survey System, one of the 36 subdivisions of a township. A section represents 1 square mile or 640 acres.

Sedimentary rock

A rock formed by the accumulation and consolidation of loose sediments in layered deposits.

Service area right

Within an AMA, the right of a city, town, private water company and irrigation district to withdraw and deliver groundwater to customers within its service area (as defined in A.R.S. § 45-402), subject to the AMA’s conservation requirements and the Assured Water Supply Rules.

Small community water system

A community water system that annually serves 1,850 acre-feet or less of water to customers.

Small municipal provider

Within an AMA, municipal water providers serving 250 acre-feet or less of water for non-irrigation purposes annually. Some AMA's exclude untreated water from this definition. 

Snow water equivalent (SWE)

The amount of water contained in the snowpack that would theoretically appear if the snow were melted all at once; also known as snow water content.

Spillwater

Water, other than Colorado River water, released for beneficial use from storage, diversion or distribution facilities to avoid spilling that would otherwise occur due to uncontrolled surface water inflows that exceed facility capacity. 

Spring

A place where water emerges naturally from the earth without artificial assistance onto the land surface or into a body of surface water.

State demonstration project

A project for the storage of excess CAP water at an underground storage facility.

Stockpond

An impoundment of any size that stores appropriable water and that is for the sole purpose of watering livestock and wildlife.

Storage capacity

The maximum volume of water that can be impounded by a reservoir when there is no discharge of water. 

Storage facility

A groundwater savings facility or an underground storage facility. 

Stored water

Water that is stored underground for the purpose of recovery pursuant to a underground water storage, savings and replenishment permit. Water that is stored underground for the purpose of recovery pursuant to a underground water storage, savings and replenishment permit. 

Sub-basin

An area which may be designated so as to enclose a relatively hydrologically distinct body of groundwater within a groundwater basin, as described horizontally by surface description. 

Subdivision

Improved or unimproved land(s) divided or proposed to be divided for the purpose of sale or lease, whether immediate or future, into six or more lots, parcels or fractional interests.  Subdivisions by definition do not include leasehold offerings of one year or less or to the division or proposed division of land(s) into lots or parcels that are each 36 acres or more in area. 

Subflow

Those waters which first slowly find their way through the sand and gravel constituting the bed of the stream, or the lands under or immediately adjacent to the stream, and are themselves a part of the surface stream. 

Subsidence

The settling or lowering of the surface of land which results from the withdrawal of groundwater.