PrintGroundwater Budgets
Now that you are an expert on how groundwater flows, we will apply that knowledge to the important problem of groundwater budgets. As groundwater flows through and exits an aquifer, for example at springs or at extraction wells, those losses of water may be balanced by recharge that percolates from the land surface. As you’ll investigate in the following section, and through a case study of the famous Ogallala aquifer in the American Midwest, understanding the budget of inflows and outflows to an aquifer is critical to evaluating the sustainability of groundwater use.