Long Island is surrounded by an almost limitless amount of saltwater in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Long Island Sound, and in the many bays bordering Long Island. Although the salty water is important to the economy of the area and is of significant recreational value, this website is mainly concerned with the fresh water of Long Island, which from many standpoints, is even more important than the salty water.
When rain falls to the ground, the water does not stop moving. Some of it flows along the land surface to streams or lakes as "runoff", some is used by plants and is transpired back to the atmosphere, some evaporates and returns to the atmosphere, and some seeps into the ground as “recharge”.
As water seeps into the ground, some of it clings to particles of soil or to roots of plants just below the land surface in what is termed the “unsaturated zone”. This moisture provides plants with the water they need to grow. Water not used by plants moves deeper into the ground as “recharge”. This water moves downward through empty pore spaces in the sand and gravel that comprise the aquifers until it reaches the zone of saturation, where 100 percent of the pore spaces are filled with water. The top of this saturated zone in the uppermost aquifer is called the water table and the water that fills the pore spaces of the aquifer is called groundwater (Clark and Briar, 1993).
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Table of Contents
State of the Aquifer, Long Island, New York - Introduction
- Precipitation
- NWIS - the USGS Data Archive
- Surface Water - Streamflow
- Groundwater Levels
- Water Table and Surface Maps
- Water Use
- Groundwater Budget
- Inflow to the Groundwater System
- Outflow from the Groundwater System
Below are other science projects associated with this project.
Hydrologic Cycle
Long Island Precipitation and Recharge
Long Island Surface Water
Long Island Groundwater
Long Island Hydrogeologic Units
Long Island Fresh and Saltwater Relations/Interactions
- Overview
Long Island is surrounded by an almost limitless amount of saltwater in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Long Island Sound, and in the many bays bordering Long Island. Although the salty water is important to the economy of the area and is of significant recreational value, this website is mainly concerned with the fresh water of Long Island, which from many standpoints, is even more important than the salty water.
When rain falls to the ground, the water does not stop moving. Some of it flows along the land surface to streams or lakes as "runoff", some is used by plants and is transpired back to the atmosphere, some evaporates and returns to the atmosphere, and some seeps into the ground as “recharge”.
As water seeps into the ground, some of it clings to particles of soil or to roots of plants just below the land surface in what is termed the “unsaturated zone”. This moisture provides plants with the water they need to grow. Water not used by plants moves deeper into the ground as “recharge”. This water moves downward through empty pore spaces in the sand and gravel that comprise the aquifers until it reaches the zone of saturation, where 100 percent of the pore spaces are filled with water. The top of this saturated zone in the uppermost aquifer is called the water table and the water that fills the pore spaces of the aquifer is called groundwater (Clark and Briar, 1993).
_______________________________
Table of Contents
State of the Aquifer, Long Island, New York - Introduction
- Precipitation
- NWIS - the USGS Data Archive
- Surface Water - Streamflow
- Groundwater Levels
- Water Table and Surface Maps
- Water Use
- Groundwater Budget
- Inflow to the Groundwater System
- Outflow from the Groundwater System
- Science
Below are other science projects associated with this project.
Hydrologic Cycle
The water cycle has no starting point, but we'll begin in the oceans, since that is where most of Earth's water exists. The sun, which drives the water cycle, heats water in the oceans. Some of it evaporates as vapor into the air; a relatively smaller amount of moisture is added as ice and snow sublimate directly from the solid state into vapor. Rising air currents take the vapor up into the...Long Island Precipitation and Recharge
Precipitation is water released from clouds in the form of rain, freezing rain, sleet, snow, or hail. It is the primary connection in the water cycle that provides for the delivery of atmospheric water to the Earth. Most precipitation falls as rain. Water seeping down from the land surface and reaching the water table adds to the groundwater and is called groundwater recharge. Groundwater is...Long Island Surface Water
Streams either gain water from inflow of groundwater from the underlying aquifer or lose water by outflow to the underlying aquifer. Many streams do both, gaining in some reaches and losing in other reaches. Furthermore, the groundwater flow directions near any given stream can change seasonally as the altitude of the water table changes with respect to the stream-surface altitude or when rapid...Long Island Groundwater
Approximately 30% of the world’s water is stored as groundwater. Groundwater moves very slowly, on the order of feet per day, however it is still part of the hydrologic cycle. Most of the water in the ground comes from precipitation that infiltrates downward from the land surface.Long Island Hydrogeologic Units
Long Island’s aquifer system consists of a seaward-dipping wedge of mostly unconsolidated stratified sediments comprised of sand, gravel, silt and clay.Long Island Fresh and Saltwater Relations/Interactions
Because saltwater has a greater density than freshwater, fresh groundwater in coastal aquifers will overlie any saltwater that is present in the aquifer at depth (Figure 14).