Water Availability and Use

The State of New Jersey strives to allocate water resources to meet human demands and ecological needs. The New Jersey Water Transfer Data Model (NJWaTr) is a database system that compiles, stores, and distributes New Jersey’s water use data for research and modeling purposes. NJWaTr helps officials understand the movement and uses of water throughout the State over time.

Ecological flows (also referred to as environmental flows) collectively describe the components of streamflow that are needed to ensure the structure and function of a stream ecosystem. Five major components of streamflow that are important in shaping ecological processes in streams are: magnitude, frequency, duration, timing, and rate of change. The US Geological Survey, in cooperation with the...

Harmful algal blooms with cyanotoxin production (CyanoHABs) have been shown to adversely affect water resources worldwide, however only a handful of studies have examined the occurrence and persistence of CyanoHABs in fluvial systems used for municipal water-supply. Of particular concern in New Jersey is the Raritan Basin Water Supply Complex (RBWSC) as it is the water supply for multiple water...

The purpose of the Program is to develop a sound understanding of the potential for development of potable groundwater supply in selected African countries and build local capacity to plan and conduct the hydrologic investigations and monitoring necessary to help ensure that groundwater resources are developed and managed efficiently and sustainably.

The Current Period Streamflow Statistics project is computing low flow statistics for both a historic (1950-1979) and more recent (1990-2019) 30-year period. The computed statistics will provide information about streamflow changes over time and an evaluation of more recent streamflow conditions. The project will also present land-use changes, precipitation patterns, and water use in the...

The primary source of self-supplied domestic water use is from private wells which are often unmonitored. As a result, estimates of the quantities of water withdrawn are based off of relatively small amounts of data. To gain a better understanding of this type of water use, a project was initiated in cooperation with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to meter private domestic...

The following terms have been used in one or more of the water-use publications. The comparison of water-use categories over the history of these reports may also help clarify the use of some of the terms.

The NJWSC conducts research and investigations related to topics such as groundwater and surface-water quality related to anthropogenic and agricultural activities, hydraulic and hydrologic modeling, tracking the movement of groundwater contamination, groundwater resource assessments and modeling, ecological assessments and response to urbanization, and estimating water-use for human and...

The series of surficial aquifer studies were completed to evaluate the unconfined aquifer system of the NJ Coastal Plain for use as a potential source of water. As the demand for water in the State increases and the restrictions continue on the use of water from certain confined aquifers, withdrawals on the unconfined aquifer system are expected to increase. Detailed study of the unconfined...

The New Jersey Pine Barrens, or Pinelands National Reserve (PNR), is a vast and unique ecosystem comprising approximately a 938,000-acre area of southern New Jersey. It spans portions of seven counties (Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, and Ocean), and all or part of 56 municipalities. It is home to dozens of rare plant and animal species, and the Kirkwood-Cohansey...

The NJ Coastal Plain RASA (Regional Aquifer System Analysis) model (in this document referred to simply as “the RASA model”) is one of the most widely used models by hydrologists in the NJWSC. This model was developed as part of the RASA program, which was started in 1978 after a congressional mandate to develop quantitative appraisals of the major groundwater systems of the United States.

The pace of development in Hopewell Township increased substantially in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Concurrent with this has been an increased awareness of the township’s finite water resources and the potential for environmental degradation from increased ground-water withdrawals and reduced ground-water recharge. The goal of this project is to provide a long-term, easily accessed data base...