UMass Sesquicentennial

Water Resources

In spite of the fact that Massachusetts receives 42 to 45 inches of rainfall annually, we do not have an inexhaustible supply of water. Increased development, aquifer overdrafts, and transfers between water supplies, exacerbated by drought conditions, can cause streamflows in the Commonwealth to become extremely low, and local drinking water supplies to be stressed. The decrease in baseflow of the Ipswich River is a good example of the collective impact of such issues.

The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the U.S. Geological Survey, and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection have a wealth of data on water resources in Massachusetts.  To obtain data on precipitation, surface water, groundwater, water quality, drought and flood conditions, and available publications visit the websites below.

An index of all USGS geologic maps and hydrogeologic publications for Massachusetts, cross-referenced and indexed by town and 7.5' quadrangle. This is an extremely valuable resource for finding...

A web-searchable database / visualization tool for all of the borings associated with the central artery project / "Big Dig" in Boston.

Searchable online database of well completion reports in Massachusetts. Maintained by MassDEP

Well Inventories consist of ESRI ArcView Project files (*.apr), associated ESRI shapefiles and scanned boring logs compiled from several sources.   Each *. apr file displays borehole locations,...

Aquifers located in isolated stratified drift deposits in the northeastern portion of the US are extremely fragile and important groundwater resources. These aquifers, when restricted to bedrock...

This preliminary version of the Fracture Characterization Map of the Ayer Quadrangle (Kopera, 2006) has been removed pending the release of an updated version of the underlying bedrock geologic...

Well Inventories consist of ESRI ArcView Project files (*.apr), associated ESRI shapefiles and scanned boring logs compiled from several sources.   Each *. apr file displays borehole locations,...

Well Inventories consist of ESRI ArcView Project files (*.apr), associated ESRI shapefiles and scanned boring logs compiled from several sources.   Each *. apr file displays borehole locations,...

Location

The MA Geological Survey
Department of Geosciences
269 Morrill Science Center
University of Massachusetts
611 North Pleasant Street
Amherst, MA 01003-9297

Contact Us

Ph: (413) 545-4814
Fax: (413) 545-1200

stategeologist at geo dot umass dot edu
 

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