Development and Testing of a Framework for Regional Synthesis in the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain

WRD PROJECT #: MD186
PROJECT CHIEF: Denver, Judith M.
BEGIN DATE: 01-October-1996
END DATE: 30-September-2000

Customers currently supporting the project:

U.S. Geological Survey

Problem

The success of the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program depends on its ability to assess the status and trends in quality of the Nation's water resources in the context of natural and human factors that affect water quality. There is a need for integration of results from study units in regions with similar hydrogeologic characteristics and water-quality issues. This type of integration will synthesize results from multiple study units and also determine the adequacy of existing data collected from the individual study units for contribution to regional understanding of water quality.

Objectives

The Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain (the area from northern New Jersey through North Carolina), includes all or part of five NAWQA study units. The primary goals of this project are to analyze what the NAWQA program has accomplished in this region to date, and the direction it should head in the future to address regional priority water-policy issues. Specific objectives of this project are to:

1. Synthesize existing ground-water and base-flow surface-water data for the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain into a regional environmental framework that defines the physical setting and identifies the primary processes affecting water quality.
2. Develop a strategy and guidelines for regional synthesis that will be used for this study and could be transferred to other areas.
3. Outline a plan for future NAWQA study in this region, which would fill important data gaps and directly address regional water-quality problems in the context of policy issues.

Approach

Existing water-quality data collected for NAWQA and other studies will be integrated into a regional framework that includes hydrogeologic and other environmental characteristics. This analysis will span different scales of data ranging from local flow-path studies, used to determine processes in particular settings, to large regional data sets, which will be used to describe statistically regional patterns in water quality and identify the limitations in the current data sets. The strategy for this analyses, and the problems and limitations encountered, will be documented as suggested guidelines for regional synthesis for transfer to other areas. The results of this project will contribute to identification of directions for future NAWQA study, especially with respect to the quality of drinking-water resources and the effects of ground-water contributions of nutrients to surface water.