Water Security in Armenia, WI: Modeling for Informed Decision-Making in a Nitrate-Impacted Watershed

In the Central Sands region of Wisconsin, concerns have grown regarding the export of nitrogen in the form of ionic nitrate (NO3-) from agricultural areas to private wells, where nitrate can be a contaminant of concern particularly to infants and pregnant mothers. Reducing the risk of private well nitrate contamination requires an understanding of the source regions that contribute to water extracted by the well (i.e., the “capture zone”). The capture zone of private wells can be influenced by a variety of factors including local hydrostratigraphy (i.e., the arrangement of geologic units), aquifer parameters associated with hydrostratigraphic units (i.e., hydraulic conductivity and porosity), total depth of the well, and the portion of the well that is screened (i.e., open to the surrounding geologic formation).