Aquifer Mapping Project

In August 2003, the State of Michigan enacted Public Act 148 of 2003. This act requires the State to develop a ground-water inventory and map. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Institute for Water Resources at Michigan State University (IWR) entered into a cooperative with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) to meet the requirements of Section 32802 of this Public Act. Information collected for the inventory and map also will be essential to MDEQ in responding to ground-water conflicts as legislated through Public Act 177 of 2003.

A major challenge for this project is the integration of data from many sources relevant to several spatial scales. Information from large-scale geologic maps, reports from the Regional Aquifer-System Analysis (RASA), and smaller scale investigations will be linked to point data from USGS monitoring wells, the State of Michigan WelLogic database, and available aquifer test data. The project team will meet the following objectives by August 2005:

1. Data will be stored in a database using Geographic Information System (GIS) format that may be readily assessed by Map Image Viewer (software developed at Michigan State University) and ARC-IMS. Maps will be developed through the use of this software from the electronic database.
2. Maps will be developed to express the uncertainty or statistical significance of the data.
3. The seasonal and long-term variability in ground-water levels will be shown where historical observations are available.
4. Metadata meeting relevant standards will be prepared for all data in the spatial database.