 The creation of the district, which enforced a transition from ground to surface water consumption, effectively halted subsidence in the most severe areas near the Ship Channel; aquifer recharge has helped water table elevations return to normal.However, in the northwestern region of the city, groundwater levels – and, concurrently, land surface elevations – continue to decline.When Houston was established in 1837, the city's founders—John Kirby Allen and Augustus Chapman Allen—divided it into political geographic districts called "wards."