In heavily populated residential areas lacking adequate subsurface drainage, leakage from urban water supplies and wastewater discharge causes groundwater levels in underlying shallow aquifers to rise. This may have serious consequences for the stability of building foundations, roads and natural landforms. This paper evaluates the performance of a dewatering scheme comprising of 15 vertical wells in two residential areas in Kuwait. The hydraulic effectiveness is evaluated from pumping tests and preliminary numerical modelling. The results show that the scheme can keep the water table at the desired levels over a limited area. The maximum predicted nodal drawdowns after one year of pumping at 16 835 m ³ d ^–1 were 4.2 and 5.24 m in the two areas. Further investigations are proposed with the objective of optimizing pumping rates.