The Delaware Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, completed a groundwater-monitoring, infrastructure-construction, and data-collection project in southern New Castle and northern Kent Counties, Delaware.
The Delaware Geological Survey (DGS) has measured, managed, and distributed groundwaterlevel data for several decades using widely accepted procedures and practices, many of which were derived from interactions with staff of the USGS, consulting firms, and other state agencies. Many of the individual methods and procedures have been described in DGS reports, however, written documentation for these tasks have not been assembled in a single published document.
The DGS has been a data provider for the National Ground-Water Monitoring Network (NGWMN) since 2016. NGWMN is a consortium of state and local agencies and the U.S.
The Delaware Geological Survey led a multi-agency, state and federal effort (including DelDOT, DNREC, USGS, and NOAA) to secure funds from the Hurricane Sandy Relief appropriation to collect new, high-quality LiDAR for the entire state of Delaware. LiDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, is a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure distances from a source to a target object. Typically, a LiDAR device is attached to the bottom of a plane and is pointed at the ground.
Geological consultants and practitioners from state and federal agencies and industry gained first-hand experience studying several of Delaware’s more interesting rock formations with Delaware Geological Survey (DGS) scientists on April 21.
Geologic maps at the DGS are created as primary deliverables of a project and as derivatives of other projects. Primary deliverables are mainly those that are the result of outside funding sources such as the AASG-USGS cooperative StateMap. Derivative maps are those that have primary data collected for reasons other than geologic mapping can be used to create geologic maps or that geologic maps are derivative products of a project rather than the primary goal of a project.
The DGS will research past performance of the Water Conditions Index (WCI) for Northern New Castle County, as compared with other established drought indicators, and investigate modifying the WCI, if needed. We will also investigate the feasibility of quantifying water conditions in Kent and Sussex Counties by analyzing factors that are most important to these regions (i.e., precipitation, groundwater for agricultural irrigation, etc….)
The seismic instruments located at the Greenville, DE location were adopted by DGS from the Earthscope Transportable Array, which consists of a network of 400 high-quality, portable broadband seismometers that are being placed in temporary sites across the United States. DGS adopted two of these Earthscope stations, P60A in Greenville, DE and Q61A in Milford, DE. This program provided an outstanding opportunity for Delaware to enhance its seismic monitoring capabilities in the future, and upgrade current antiquated equipment.
