1.7 million square kilometers of Australia's Great Artesian Basin, underlying arid regions across four states and territories. The dataset from Geoscience Australia describes a multi-layered confined aquifer system up to 3000 meters thick, with historical data on approximately 4700 flowing artesian wells drilled since the 1880s. It includes hydrogeological parameters like transmissivity, hydraulic gradients, and water levels, with a last update recorded for April 2026.
Use Cases
- Model groundwater flow and recharge based on described hydraulic gradients and aquifer transmissivity values.
- Analyze historical water level changes and artesian well performance from the 1880s to the 1970s.
- Map the spatial extent and geological structure of the multi-layered aquifer system across Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, and the Northern Territory.
- Assess the impact of pastoral and town water supply development on the basin's groundwater resources.
Strengths
- Covers a vast spatial area of 1.7 million square kilometers, approximately one-fifth of Australia.
- Includes specific hydrogeological measurements, such as hydraulic gradients of 1:2000 and transmissivity values ranging from tens to hundreds m²/day.
- Provides historical context with data points from 1880 to the 1970s, including records on about 4700 flowing artesian wells.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale statistical modeling.
- Data is provided in PDF and HTML formats, which may require extraction and structuring for analysis.
Provenance
- Source
- Geoscience Australia Data
- Time Range
- Historical data from circa 1880s to 1970s, with metadata updated in 2026.
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-04-30 15:09:32.668436; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Great Artesian Basin, Australia, covering parts of Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, and the Northern Territory.