Water-level measurements were made during 1992-94 in 253 wells completed in the Black Creek aquifer in an approximately 2,550-square-mile area of Bladen, Hoke, Robeson, and Scotland Counties in the southern Coastal Plain of North Carolina. Water levels were measured in 56 wells in the fall of 1992, 135 wells in the fall of 1993, and 62 wells in the spring of 1994 to map the potentiometric surface of the Black Creek aquifer for three different parts of these counties. The maps of the potentiometric surface can be used to infer general direction of ground-water flow from recharge areas in the uplands to discharge areas at local streams and wells. With- drawals from wells at pumping centers, such as areas around Elizabethtown in Bladen County and Maxton and Lumberton in Robeson County, have resulted in cones of depression in the potentiometric surface, causing ground water to flow toward the pumped wells. In southwestern Bladen County, where the Black Creek aquifer is overlain by the Peedee aquifer and the Black Creek confining unit, most ground water does not discharge to local streams but flows southeastward toward the coast or is discharged from pumped wells.
Observed water-level changes in the Black Creek aquifer have been minor throughout most of Bladen, Hoke, Robeson, and Scotland Counties since 1988. However, water-level declines of about 11 feet were recorded near Lumberton during 1993-94.
