Providing Communities with the Groundwater Information Needed for Comprehensive Planning

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Project Number:

WR03R007

Funding Year:

2003

Contract Period:

7/1/2003 - 6/30/2005

Funding Source:

UWS, USGS

Investigator(s):
PIs:
  • Douglas Cherkauer, UW-Milwaukee
Abstract:

The concept of comprehensive planning in now at the forefront in Wisconsin. While it recognizes the need for inclusion of groundwater resources in the planning process, it focuses almost entirely on water quality. Communities have little expertise and get little advice on identifying and protecting the quantity of their water supply, a particular problem in populous southeastern Wisconsin. A compendium of groundwater information and a groudwater flow model have been developed on the regional level. Within that framework, will extend the process to the local level. It will work with a pilot community to develop a protocol for them to quantify and understand their groundwater budget. That information will then be coupled, via a flow model, with projected changes in land use and pumping demand to define the effects of different development approaches on the community’s water supply. Once developed for the pilot community, the protocol will be publicized to other groundwater users. It will allow communities to decide how to best protect the recharge areas that supply their water and to examine how groundwater changes will effect flows and water levels is surface water bodies. Ideally it will also allow communities to recognize that groundwater resources are not infinite and need active management based on an understanding of the hydrologic system.

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