Water-level and land-subsidence studies in the Mojave River and Morongo groundwater basins

Since 1992, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Mojave Water Agency (MWA), has constructed a series of regional water-table maps for intermittent years in a continuing effort to monitor groundwater conditions in the Mojave River and Morongo groundwater basins. The previously published data, which were used to construct these maps, can be accessed on the interactive map. The associated reports describing the groundwater conditions for the Mojave River groundwater basin for 1992 (Stamos and Predmore, 1995), the Morongo groundwater basin for 1994 (Trayler and Koczot, 1995), and for both groundwater basins for 1996 (Mendez and Christensen, 1997); for 1998 (Smith and Pimentel, 2000), for 2000 (Smith, 2002), for 2002 (Smith and others, 2004), for 2004 (Stamos and others, 2004), and for 2006 (Stamos and others, 2007) can be accessed using this web site.

Spatially detailed maps of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) methods were used to characterize land subsidence associated with groundwater-level declines during various intervals of time between 1992 and 1999 in the Mojave River and Morongo groundwater basins (Sneed and others, 2003). Concerns related to the potential for new or renewed land subsidence in the basins resulted in a cooperative study between the MWA and the USGS in 2006. InSAR data were developed to determine the location, extent, and magnitude of vertical land-surface changes in the Mojave River and Morongo groundwater basins for time intervals ranging from about 35 days to 14 months between 1999 and 2000 and between 2003 and 2004. (interactive Google map) The results from many future land-subsidence studies, which are scheduled about every 10 years, will be available on this website.

Mapping of water-level contours, water-level change and numerous InSAR images were combined in an interactive map. This interactive map may be customized to your needs and viewed at a scale that is appropriate for the data.