Cone of depression around a pumping well

Pumping lowers the water table around a well into a cone. If pumping exceeds recharge, the cone deepens and widens indefinitely.

Drawdown: How far the water level falls at the well while pumping. It increases with pumping rate and decreases with aquifer transmissivity.
Well interference: Overlapping cones mean each well lowers the others. This is why abstraction licensing considers the catchment, not the individual borehole.
Groundwater mining: When abstraction persistently exceeds recharge, the water table does not recover between seasons and storage is spent rather than used.

Text description

A cross-section showing the water table drawn down into a cone shape around a pumped well. The cone is deepest at the well and shallows outward. A neighbouring well within the cone experiences a lower water level than it otherwise would. If total abstraction exceeds recharge, the whole water table declines year on year rather than recovering between pumping periods.