NGWA supports funding for the National Ground-Water Monitoring Network
The National Ground-Water Monitoring Network (NGWMN) was authorized in the 2009 SECURE Water Act and reauthorized in 2024 in the Water Monitoring and Tracking Essential Resources (Water) Data Improvement Act.
Following the success of pilot projects by several states beginning in 2015, funding to support data providers to the NGWMN has been available annually to create cooperative agreements between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and state and local agencies. Funding is used by agencies to establish, grow, or maintain groundwater monitoring networks as well as to maintain a publicly accessible online portal for the public to access collected data.
Data contributed to the NGWMN is accessible on a public portal administered by USGS. State and local agencies retain ownership of data.
The NGWMN represents a first-of-its-kind network for sharing measurements of groundwater levels and quality, creating partnerships between local, state, and federal agencies, and allowing public access to data via an online portal.
- Groundwater resources are a critical source of drinking water for more than 40 percent of the country. It is a primary source of irrigation water for high-quality agricultural products and an important driver for the U.S. economy.
- The NGWMN enables important interstate data-sharing and helps to inform local and regional groundwater management decisions.
- The NGWMN is a voluntary, cooperative, integrated system of data collection, management, and reporting providing valuable information.
- Currently (2025), the NGWMN includes water levels from approximately 18,000 wells and water-quality data from nearly 4,200 wells all of which are provided by about 40 contributing agencies.