1980 to 1997 water-level-change contours for the High Plains aquifer, covering about 174,000 square miles across eight central U.S. states. The digital data set was created by the U.S. Geological Survey from measurements at 5,233 wells and published in 1999. It documents water-level changes over a 17-year period for a principal water source in a major agricultural region.
Use Cases
- Analyze spatial patterns of water-level decline using the manually drawn contour lines to identify regions of greatest aquifer depletion.
- Model groundwater availability by integrating the 1980-1997 change contours with data on aquifer properties like hydraulic conductivity and specific yield.
- Assess the impact of irrigation withdrawals by correlating water-level changes with the reported 13 million acres irrigated in 1980.
- Validate regional groundwater flow models using the digitized contours derived from 5,233 well measurements as a historical baseline.
Strengths
- Data derived from 5,233 individual well measurements taken in both 1980 and 1997.
- Covers a large geographic area of approximately 174,000 square miles across eight states.
- Subjected to formal U.S. Geological Survey review standards for topological consistency and attribute accuracy.
Limitations
- Temporal coverage ends in 1997, making the data over 25 years old and potentially not reflective of current conditions.
- Contours were drawn manually at a 1:1,000,000 scale, which may introduce generalization errors compared to automated methods.
- Specific column names and data formats are not provided in the available metadata.
Provenance
- Source
- U.S. Geological Survey High Plains Water-Level Monitoring Project.
- Collection Method
- Manual digitization of water-level-change contours drawn on mylar from well measurements.
- Time Range
- 1980 to 1997
- Freshness
- 1999-12-31
- Geography
- High Plains aquifer region in parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.