DEVELOPMENT AND APPLICATION OF A GROUNDWATER FLOW MODEL OF THE ATLANTIC COASTAL PLAIN AQUIFERS, AIKEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA

Aiken County is located in South Carolina along the Fall Line and is bordered by the Savannah River on the west, Edgefield and Saluda Counties on the north, Barnwell and Orangeburg Counties on the southeast and by Lexington County on the east. The 2014 population estimated to be about 165,000 persons living in the County, an increase of about 14 percent from 2000. Aiken County is the fourth largest South Carolina County by land area, about 1,073 square miles.

Most of the potable water produced in Aiken County, with the exception of North Augusta, is supplied by groundwater produced from the various Atlantic Coastal Plain (ACP) aquifers underlying the county. The ACP aquifers underlying Aiken County are very productive and generally contain high-quality groundwater that requires little treatment prior to use. The reliance on groundwater by Aiken County has increased steadily since the 1950’s, but it is unknown if this withdrawal of groundwater will affect the current or future availability or quality of groundwater in Aiken County. Irrigated agriculture acreage is expanding in Aiken County resulting in an increased demand on groundwater resources.

The primary objective of the assessment of the groundwater availability for Aiken County is to develop a groundwater-flow model that can be used by Aiken County water utilities to manage current and projected reported and unreported demands on groundwater resource and to ensure the highest quality of groundwater. This objective can be discretized into 4 tasks, listed here in order of implementation 1) develop a state-of-the science groundwater-flow and management model; 2) calculate the water budget for the Aiken County area; 3) document the general water-quality characteristics for public-supply wells across Aiken County: 4) assess the occurrence of chemical contamination in selected public-supply wells.