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Jennifer Stanton

Jennifer Stanton is a Hydrologist in the New England Water Science Center.

Jennifer Stanton began her career with the USGS in 1994. She has studied a wide range of water resource topics including groundwater quality, groundwater age dating, groundwater/surface-water interactions, groundwater level changes, estimation of water budget components, and development of groundwater flow models. Other areas of interest include application of GIS to analyze groundwater data.

2017-present: Assessing effects of oil and gas development on groundwater resources for the California Oil, Gas, and Groundwater Program.

2013-2017: Project manager for the National Brackish Groundwater Assessment.

2007-2013: Developed regional water budgets and groundwater-flow models using tools such as MODFLOW, Parameter Estimation (PEST), the Groundwater Management (GWM) package, and Soil Water Balance (SWB) code.

1996-2007: Conducted regional groundwater-quality studies.

1997-2000: Authored the annual state-wide groundwater level change report.

1996-2003:  Managed USGS databases. Coordinated with 34 Federal, State, and local agencies to compile groundwater levels from approximately 4,000 observation wells state-wide on a semi-annual basis.

1994-1996: Provided GIS and cartographic support.

Education and Certifications

  • B.S. Natural Resources, University of Nebraska at Lincoln (1998)

    Major: Water Science – Minors: Math, Music

Science and Products

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USGS WAUSP Water Census: Map of National Brackish Groundwater Assessment

National Brackish Groundwater Assessment

All water naturally contains dissolved solids that can make it "brackish" or distastefully salty. The amount of freshwater for drinking-water, agricultural, industrial, and environmental needs has declined in many areas and has led to concerns about future availability. The USGS conducted a national assessment of brackish aquifers that could supplement or replace freshwater sources.
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Water Resources
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National Brackish Groundwater Assessment

All water naturally contains dissolved solids that can make it "brackish" or distastefully salty. The amount of freshwater for drinking-water, agricultural, industrial, and environmental needs has declined in many areas and has led to concerns about future availability. The USGS conducted a national assessment of brackish aquifers that could supplement or replace freshwater sources.
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Kern County injection well

California Oil, Gas, and Groundwater (COGG) Program

The USGS California Water Science Center is working in partnership with state and federal agencies to answer the following questions about oil and gas development and groundwater resources:
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California Water Science Center
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California Oil, Gas, and Groundwater (COGG) Program

The USGS California Water Science Center is working in partnership with state and federal agencies to answer the following questions about oil and gas development and groundwater resources:
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Data used to estimate groundwater salinity above the Montebello oil field (California, USA)

This release contains borehole geophysical electrical log data (elogs), total dissolved solids sample data (TDS), and geostatistical program files used to estimate the salinity distribution in groundwater above and in the vicinity of the Montebello Oil Field, located near Los Angeles, California, USA. Original data are drawn from a variety of publicly available sources and are combined here for us

Base of the upper layer of the phase-three Elkhorn-Loup groundwater-flow model, north-central Nebraska

The Elkhorn and Loup Rivers in Nebraska provide water for irrigation, recreation, hydropower produc­tion, aquatic life, and municipal water systems for the Omaha and Lincoln metropolitan areas. Groundwater is another important resource in the region and is extracted primarily for agricultural irrigation. Water managers of the area are interested in balancing and sustaining the long-term uses of th
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Water Resources, Nebraska Water Science Center
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Geostatistical mapping of salinity conditioned on borehole logs, Montebello Oil Field, California

We present a geostatistics-based stochastic salinity estimation framework for the Montebello Oil Field that capitalizes on available total dissolved solids (TDS) data from groundwater samples as well as electrical resistivity (ER) data from borehole logging. Data from TDS samples (n = 4924) was coded into an indicator framework based on falling below four selected thresholds (500, 1000, 3000, and
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Water Resources, California Water Science Center, New England Water Science Center

Simulation of groundwater flow, 1895–2010, and effects of additional groundwater withdrawals on future stream base flow in the Elkhorn and Loup River Basins, central Nebraska—Phase three

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Lewis and Clark, Lower Elkhorn, Lower Loup, Lower Platte North, Lower Niobrara, Middle Niobrara, Upper Elkhorn, and the Upper Loup Natural Resources Districts, designed a study to refine the spatial and temporal discretization of a previously modeled area. This updated study focused on a 30,000-square-mile area of the High Plains aquifer and cons
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Water Resources, Nebraska Water Science Center

Continuing progress toward a national assessment of water availability and use

Executive SummaryThe Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (Public Law 111—11) was passed into law on March 30, 2009. Subtitle F, also known as the SECURE Water Act, calls for the establishment of a “national water availability and use assessment program” within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS issued the first report on the program in 2013. Program progress over the period 2013–17
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Water Resources, Earth Resources Observation and Science Center, Water Availability and Use Science Program, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center

Brackish groundwater and its potential as a resource in the southwestern United States

Secure, reliable, and sustainable water resources are fundamental to food production, energy independence, and the health of humans and ecosystems. But the large-scale development of fresh groundwater resources has stressed aquifers in some areas, causing declines in the amount of groundwater in storage and decreases in discharge to surface-water bodies like rivers and springs (Reilly and others,
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Water Resources, Arizona Water Science Center

Brackish groundwater and its potential as a resource in the southwestern United States

Secure, reliable, and sustainable water resources are fundamental to food production, energy independence, and the health of humans and ecosystems. But the large-scale development of fresh groundwater resources has stressed aquifers in some areas, causing declines in the amount of groundwater in storage and decreases in discharge to surface-water bodies like rivers and springs (Reilly and others,
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Water Resources, Arizona Water Science Center

Minimum energy requirements for desalination of brackish groundwater in the United States with comparison to international datasets

This paper uses chemical and physical data from a large 2017 U.S. Geological Surveygroundwater dataset with wells in the U.S. and three smaller international groundwater datasets with wells primarily in Australia and Spain to carry out a comprehensive investigation of brackish groundwater composition in relation to minimum desalinationenergy costs. First, we compute the site-specific least work re
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Water Resources

Minimum energy requirements for desalination of brackish groundwater in the United States with comparison to international datasets

This paper uses chemical and physical data from a large 2017 U.S. Geological Surveygroundwater dataset with wells in the U.S. and three smaller international groundwater datasets with wells primarily in Australia and Spain to carry out a comprehensive investigation of brackish groundwater composition in relation to minimum desalinationenergy costs. First, we compute the site-specific least work re
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Water Resources

Brackish groundwater and its potential to augment freshwater supplies

Secure, reliable, and sustainable water resources are fundamental to the Nation’s food production, energy independence, and ecological and human health and well-being. Indications are that at any given time, water resources are under stress in selected parts of the country. The large-scale development of groundwater resources has caused declines in the amount of groundwater in storage and declines
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Water Resources, Nebraska Water Science Center

Brackish groundwater in the United States

For some parts of the Nation, large-scale development of groundwater has caused decreases in the amount of groundwater that is present in aquifer storage and that discharges to surface-water bodies. Water supply in some areas, particularly in arid and semiarid regions, is not adequate to meet demand, and severe drought is affecting large parts of the United States. Future water demand is projected
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Water Resources, Arizona Water Science Center, New England Water Science Center, Western Fisheries Research Center, Klamath Falls Field Station (KFFS)

Chemical considerations for an updated National assessment of brackish groundwater resources

Brackish groundwater (BGW) is increasingly used for water supplies where fresh water is scarce, but the distribution and availability of such resources have not been characterized at the national scale in the United States since the 1960s. Apart from its distribution and accessibility, BGW usability is a function of the chemical requirements of the intended use, chemical characteristics of the res
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Water Resources, Water Availability and Use Science Program, Colorado Water Science Center

Geodatabase compilation of hydrogeologic, remote sensing, and water-budget-component data for the High Plains aquifer, 2011

The High Plains aquifer underlies almost 112 million acres in the central United States. It is one of the largest aquifers in the Nation in terms of annual groundwater withdrawals and provides drinking water for 2.3 million people. The High Plains aquifer has gained national and international attention as a highly stressed groundwater supply primarily because it has been appreciably depleted in so
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Water Resources, Oklahoma-Texas Water Science Center

Effects of linking a soil-water-balance model with a groundwater-flow model

A previously published regional groundwater-flow model in north-central Nebraska was sequentially linked with the recently developed soil-water-balance (SWB) model to analyze effects to groundwater-flow model parameters and calibration results. The linked models provided a more detailed spatial and temporal distribution of simulated recharge based on hydrologic processes, improvement of simulated
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Water Resources, Nebraska Water Science Center
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USGS Assessment of Brackish Water Could Help Nation Stretch Limited Freshwater Supplies

New USGS assessment provides fresh insights into nation’s brackish groundwater inventory

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