THREE-DIMENSIONAL HYDROGEOLOGIC FRAMEWORK MODELS: NEVADA AND CALIFORNIA

Rapid population growth, agricultural changes, climate variability, and changes in regulations are resulting in increased water use and have led to stresses to the groundwater resources in Nevada and California. Groundwater use in some groundwater basins has resulted in water-level declines, changes to surface-water groundwater interaction, and land subsidence. Adjacent bedrock aquifers are increasingly being targeted for additional development. Such groundwater development impacts water quantity and quality, existing water rights, and wildlife habitats. Potential water-resource conflicts exist because of disparate interests, particularly with respect to the development of groundwater resources to meet agricultural, municipal, and industrial water demand and the need to protect habitat for endangered and threatened species. An understanding of hydrogeologic processes, particularly the hydrogeologic framework that strongly influence groundwater-basin water balances, the magnitude of groundwater storage changes, and intra and inter-basin groundwater flow in California and Nevada, is necessary to assess the potential effects of groundwater development. Dr. Turner was a pioneer in developing techniques for storing, visualizing, and analyzing the complex hydrogeologic frameworks upon which these water resources depend. In some sense, his quest for a single, true, three-dimensional geographic information system on which to analyze these systems and their uncertainty continues to this day. This quest centered around his belief in the importance of collaborating with researchers from across the globe and communicating findings with the water-resource managers and the public. The importance of these techniques and communicating the results will be demonstrated in several areas in southern Nevada and California.