THE USGS NATIONAL GROUNDWATER MONITORING NETWORK AND CLIMATE RESPONSE NETWORK: BACKGROUND AND PATHS FORWARD

The National Ground-Water Monitoring Network (NGWMN) is a nationwide compilation of selected groundwater monitoring wells from federal, state, and local groundwater monitoring networks that is maintained by the USGS. The NGWMN provides water-level and water-quality data to characterize groundwater resources at regional and Principal Aquifer scale. Data included as part of the NGWMN are obtained from data providers who, while maintaining control of their data, have agreed to share their data using web services. Data providers include state agencies, local and regional organizations, the USGS, and private companies. The USGS Climate Response Network (CRN) is a network of USGS wells established to monitor the effects of drought and other climate variability on groundwater levels. The network consists of a Federally-funded component and a set of supplemental CRN wells that meet the CRN criteria.

This presentation will give an overview of the NGWMN and the CRN well networks. The overview will discuss how agencies can participate in the NGWMN and provide examples of assessing NGWMN data for analysis. Maps and graphs showing the status of the NGWMN and growth of the NGWMN since 2015 will be presented. The criteria used to select CRN wells will be presented. The status of the Climate Response Network will also be presented.