Water Availability

The Water Cycle Center is a cooperation between U.S. Geological Survey and academic partners in the Northeast that studies complete water cycles and watersheds, from mountaintops to shorelines, concentrating on freshwater ecosystems. This research advances the understanding of processes that determine water availability and is needed to best address future water resource challenges.

The Providence Water Supply Board (Providence Water) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are collaborating on a study to predict future water demand in and around the city of Providence.

Primarily through the efforts of Glenn Hodgkins and Robert Dudley, the New England Water Science Center has been studying historical changes in streamflows, groundwater levels, and lake ice in New England and across the country for 20 years. Glenn and Rob have analyzed a wealth of historical data, including 100+ years of streamflow data and 150+ years of lake-ice data at some locations...

Below average and infrequent rainfall from May through September 2020 led to an extreme hydrologic drought across much of New England, with some areas experiencing a flash (quick-onset) drought.

Droughts are one of the most expensive and damaging hydrologic hazards in the United States. They are generally slow in developing, frequently occur over a long period of time, and can affect large areas and populations.

Monthly water use estimates for New England and the rest of the conterminous U.S. are now available for the three largest categories of use in the United States: public supply, crop irrigation, and thermoelectric power generation.

The USGS Soil-Water-Balance model (SWB) has been used to estimate potential recharge across the State of Maine. The average and range (minimum and maximum) of annual recharge were estimated for the 25-year period from 1990 to 2015. Datasets of estimated recharge and the modeled uncertainty in the recharge estimates are available for download.

The USGS, in cooperation with the Town of Barnstable and MassWildlife, is assessing the potential effects of new water-supply withdrawals on groundwater levels in the Hyannis Ponds Wildlife Management Area on Cape Cod. A groundwater-flow model is being used to simulate the effects of several possible withdrawal and wastewater-return flow scenarios developed by the Town of Barnstable and...

In 2018 USGS began work on the development of regional-scale groundwater flow and nitrogen transport models of areas along the Connecticut coast. The model will be used as a quantitative tool to evaluate groundwater flow and nitrogen loading to Long Island Sound.

In 2019 USGS completed a study designed to develop and evaluate a phased site-assessment approach for determining the hydrologic suitability of sites being considered for permeable reactive barrier installation on Cape Cod. The approach provides a template for town officials and other stakeholders to follow when considering PRBs for passive treatment of nitrogen in groundwater on Cape Cod and...

The Connecticut streamflow and sustainable water use estimator is a decision-support tool that provides estimates of daily unaltered streamflow, water-use adjusted streamflow (for the portions of the state where water-use data are available), and water availability for ungaged, user-defined sites in Connecticut.

The drought of 2016 affected hydrologic conditions throughout New England. Responses of USGS groundwater observation wells to this event, however, were not uniform and were sometimes markedly different from site to site. Although USGS scientists were able to provide explanations for most of these situations, the event highlighted the need for additional well information to develop quantitative and...