What is the Ground-Water Resources Program?
The Ground-Water Resources Program is the principal USGS program for assessing the availability of ground-water resources at the regional and national scale (fig. 1). The Ground-Water Resources Program evolved from the Regional Aquifer-System Analysis (RASA) Program. RASA studies (1987–95) primarily were designed to quantify ground-water budgets for the Nation’s principal aquifers, including depletions within those aquifers. The Ground-Water Resources Program updates and builds upon the RASA studies. Data collection and process-oriented ground-water science are used to assess the long-term availability of ground-water supplies while also addressing the environmental effects of ground-water development on land and surface-water resources. Studies currently funded by the Ground-Water Resources Program conduct regionally integrated ground-water assessments that fill the information gap between national efforts, such as the previous RASA studies, and local-scale efforts, conducted by the U
