Integrated decision support for wellhead protection

This report describes a Geographic Information System application named WELLHEAD.  It integrates geographic data on highways, townships and hydrography on flowing and standing water and wetlands with geographic subsurface information from drilling logs and sampling of strata.  To illustrate the application and utility of WELLHEAD, data from Dane County, Wisconsin has been used to allow hydrogeologists, geologists, geotechnical engineers and water chemists pursuing pollution control strategies to retrieve and view subsurface data in graphical form.  Interactive options allow the users to display information in different perspectives.

The report is arranged in the following order.  Chapter 1 gives the background that describes the needs and benefits of WELLHEAD.  It also gives an overview of its major program components.  Chapter 2 describes the WELLHEAD data sets comprised of highways, township boundaries, hydrography and lithology.  Chapter 3 details menu systems, interfaces, and database design.  It also describes the organization of the subsurface data.  Chapter 4 guides the user through spatial queries to select boring logs.  The graphical information system for subsurface characterization is covered in Chapter 5.  It guides the user to the generation of one, two and three-dimensional plots of the geographically based subsurface information in the database.

Chapters 2 through 5 contain the necessary detailed information to guide users through applications.  This report comprises the first phase of a multi-phase research effort.  Future activities, development objectives and refinements are identified in the appropriate sections.