National Ground Water Association

2013 Research Projects

Aquifer Storage and Recovery of Recycled Water: Identifying Emerging Contaminants in Source Water and Examining their Fate and Transport

Isotopic Analysis to Determine Groundwater and Stream Water Interactions in a Tropical Forest Catchment

Call for proposals

Groundwater sustainability

1. A literature and legal search of the legal bases for allocation of surface water and the implications of these bases on groundwater usage. For instance, allocations may be local or regional, such as interstate compacts. By doing so, NGWREF will provide an informed framework for long-term modification of water law and water rights.
2. A comprehensive literature review of the water costs for increased corn production. This research will identify how much energy is being gained by using corn to make ethanol, and the water resources impacts from this increased corn production.
3. Follow-up on NGWA's Declaration on the Global Importance of Ground Water. The proposed actions in the declaration would benefit from expansion and increased definition. The messages would become more focused in identifying potential governmental and private sector actions and their subsequent societal outcomes/benefits.
4. The role of water reuse and conservation.
5. Identification of how much water is used by the typical domestic well owner. Create factual information to provide to policymakers on water use.
6. Development of models and data standards that can bring together scientific data and inform local policymakers and decision-makers.
7. Aquifer storage and recovery or artificial recharge. 
• The identification of constituents of concern including emerging contaminants in varying types of artificial recharge source waters such as surface water, recycled water, or treated domestic wastewater
• The fate and transport in the subsurface of constituents of concern
• An assessment of the short- and long-term effects of artificial recharge using varying source waters on groundwater quality and use, human health, and the overall environment.
8. The ecosystem impacts of water use.
• Strategies to optimize groundwater basins so as to maximize the amount of groundwater available for use while minimizing negative impacts.
9. The impact of clean-up operations, including pumping and extracting groundwater at remediation sites, on the groundwater resource and groundwater availability.
10. Groundwater in watersheds. Surface water and groundwater watersheds commonly do not coincide. This condition is particularly relevant to understanding biogeochemical processes in small watersheds, where detailed accounting of water and solute fluxes commonly are done. Groundwater watersheds are not as easily defined as surface watersheds because (1) they are not observable from land surface, (2) groundwater flow systems of different magnitude can be superimposed on one another, and (3) groundwater divides may move in response to dynamic recharge and discharge conditions.
11. Competing water rights within watersheds. Because surface water and groundwater watersheds commonly do not coincide, there are frequently challenges within a watershed to water rights. This NGWREF effort will seek to explain the differences between surface water and groundwater watersheds, the interactions of surface water and groundwater when their unique watersheds do overlap, the competition between water rights as a result of stand-alone, as well as overlapping, watersheds, and a detailed understanding of the water rights law variations throughout the nation.

Public concerns about groundwater quality

1. Unregulated contaminants found in surface water and their potential impacts upon groundwater quality. A summary of findings is needed so as to clearly identify potential governmental and private sector actions and their subsequent societal outcomes/benefits. This may also include research on emerging contaminants and the development of remediation technologies that can be used to address new and current pollutants.
2. The role of the shallow subsurface as a cleanser of surface water-infiltrated groundwater. This would help to show the importance of groundwater as a long-term water supply.
3. A comprehensive literature review of published peer-reviewed research on alternative water and wastewater treatment systems.
4. (This may also be seen as related to sustainability.) Brackish groundwater resource assessments and research needed to make decisions regarding brackish groundwater use as a potential drinking water supply or for other purposes such as:
• Determining the areal and vertical extent and distribution of brackish groundwater
• Characterizing the resource
• Monitoring and assessing the short- and long-term effects of the removal of brackish groundwater such as saltwater intrusion, land subsidence, or changes in water quality over time
• Market trends including
• The use of brackish groundwater for drinking water or other uses
• The cost of treatment, energy, and residual disposal
• Research related to desalination such as
• Treatment, energy, and disposal costs
• Cost of membranes and how to reduce these costs
• Cost of treating brackish groundwater vs. desalination of seawater
• Residual disposal from the desalination of brackish groundwater or seawater including
• The short- and long-term impacts of residual disposal, including surface and subsurface disposal, on groundwater, streams, and estuaries
• Methods and strategies to minimize or mitigate the impacts of residual disposal on the environment.
5. Research and information to assist local officials in responding to questions from the public about unregulated contaminants in their drinking water supplies.
6. Proper cleaning and disinfection of domestic well systems initially and periodically.
7. The use of "sumps" (defined here as the space between the bottom of the well pump intake and the bottom of the borehole) in domestic well systems and their potential to promote bacterial growth and harbor other microorganisms.
8. The use of wood chips/mulch in septic systems to enhance nitrogen removal.
9. Best groundwater protection disposal practices of contaminant-laden water treatment media. As public water systems, as well as private households, enhance their treatment of drinking water for the removal of arsenic, radionuclide residuals, and other materials, there is concern about the safest means of disposal of the contaminant-laden treatment media.

When to apply

Click here to view research guidelines. Queries and proposals may be directed prior to January 15 each year. Our official action on your proposal will be announced on or before March 1 each year.

Where to apply

NGWREF — Research Proposals

Rachel Geddes, Foundation Administrator

601 Dempsey Rd.

Westerville, OH 43081

USA

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