Water-Earth Dynamics, Challenge 3: Groundwater — Knowing What You've Got Before It's Gone

Multiple Perspectives

Explore the resources listed below to find information that will help you answer the “Generate Ideas” questions and increase your knowledge about groundwater.

Articles

Four articles in the Encyclopedia of Earth provide very good background information about groundwater in general, and groundwater resources in Texas specifically.

  1. The first article entitled Groundwater, provides a general introduction to groundwater, how it occurs, and groundwater water quality.
  2. The article entitled Aquifer, by Mark McGinley, discusses the formation of aquifers, movement of water through aquifers, confined and unconfined aquifers, and aquifer recharge and discharge.
  3. Aquifers of Texas, also by Mark McGinley, provides a summary of the major aquifers of Texas, groundwater uses, recharge and water use, and the regulation of groundwater use in Texas.
  4. Lester Brown’s article on Aquifer Depletion provides a global perspective on this important issue.
  5. Surface Water and Groundwater—Together Again? by Robert Mace and others from the Texas Water Development Board offers an excellent and detailed explanation of how groundwater and surface flow interact, how their interaction is currently handled in Texas’ surface water and groundwater availability models, and what could be done in the future to better consider this interaction.  It is available as a pdf posted to the Web site.

Simulation

Web Sites

  1. Ogallala Aquifer, Wikipedia.
  2. The Edwards Aquifer.  This site by Gregg Eckhardt provides good nontechnical information about the Edwards Aquifer.

Now that you are more knowledgeable about groundwater in general, and the Ogallala and Edwards aquifers in particular, it is time to share your ideas with the class.