Delaware’s low elevation makes its groundwater resources particularly vulnerable to salinization. Rising sea levels, increasing coastal flooding, and growing demands on groundwater heighten the risk of saltwater intrusion (SWI) – seawater encroaching into freshwater aquifers.
The DGS has begun a multi-year project to install new groundwater monitoring infrastructure and collect baseline data in Sussex County, Delaware. This project is a continuation of a larger effort to construct a statewide groundwater monitoring network.
Sea-level rise is causing saltwater to move from coastal marshes and tidal creeks inland over forests and croplands.
Delaware is home to extensive networks of tidal marshes, which provide an array of critical ecosystem services including carbon sequestration. These marshes accumulate carbon due to their relatively high plant productivity and relatively low rates of litter decomposition.
It has been widely documented that Delaware is highly vulnerable to the impacts of coastal flooding along its Delaware Bay, Atlantic Ocean, and Delaware Inland Bay shores.
In 2018 to 2023, DGS participated in a project titled Water in the Changing Coastal Environment of Delaware (Project WiCCED).
An expanse of tidal wetlands fringes the Delaware Estuary and provides Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey with abundant ecosystem services including habitat for indigenous and migrating plants and wildlife, biogeochemical cycling of nutrients, preserving water quality, flood hazard mitigation
The USGS StreamStats application is a valuable online, mapbased tool for water resource management and engineering design. StreamStats allows users to obtain drainage basin characteristics and peak streamflow statistics at any location along a stream, gaged and ungaged.
In cooperation with DelDOT, DGS is monitoring groundwater at stormwater infiltration best management practice sites (BMPs) to characterize the fate and transport of chloride.
