Keep an eye on ground water

National Ground-Water Awareness Week continues...


Where is the water? How much is there? The starting point for answering these questions and others is establishing sites where ground-water levels are monitored, such as the observation well pictured above. Water levels rise and fall in response to precipitation or pumping (and sometimes other factors such as evaporation and uptake by vegetation). An observation-well network allows spatial and temporal characterization of water-level elevations. This information is useful to all kinds of agencies and scientists for a variety of purposes. These purposes include assessing aquifer extent, regional effects of pumping, resource management, and for understanding aquifer properties and ground-water behavior. Ground-water levels vary, so a network may be used to determine the range of normal conditions as well as departures from normal due to drought or withdrawals.