Joint BGS/Environment Agency dataset of aquifer designations for England and Wales at 1:50 000. The dataset identifies different types of aquifer - underground layers of water-bearing permeable rock or drift deposits from which groundwater can be extracted. These designations reflect the importance of aquifers in terms of groundwater as a resource (drinking water supply) but also their role in supporting surface water flows and wetland ecosystems. The maps are split into two different type of aquifer designation: superficial - permeable unconsolidated (loose) deposits (for example, sands and gravels), and bedrock - solid permeable formations e.g. sandstone, chalk and limestone.

Matlab m-file code to generate a probabilistic model of aquifer-body occurrence in the subsurface of the Indo-Gangetic foreland basin, northwestern India. The accompanying ArcGIS ASCII matrix files give aquifer-body percentages in successive 10 m depth slices for use within the model. File xxx_01.txt is for depths 0-10 m, file xxx_02.txt for depths 10-20 m, etc.

Thicknesses of aquifer units in the subsurface of the Indo-Gangetic foreland basin, northwestern India. Data are organised by borehole and indicate the thickness of aquifer units, separated by non-aquifer material.

These maps provide an overview, at the national scale, of the spatial relationships between principal aquifers and some of the major shale and clay units in England and Wales. The data comprises a series of occurrence maps shows the distribution of rock units that form the principal aquifers and some major shale and clay units in England and Wales. In addition, a series of separation maps show the vertical separation between pairs of shales or clays and overlying aquifers. If shale gas resources are to be developed in the UK, the implications for groundwater will need to be considered as part of any risk assessment. A step in such an assessment will be to understand and quantify the spatial relationships between the potential shale gas source rocks (including both shales and some clay units) and overlying aquifers. The datasets used to produce the aquifer maps, the shale and clay occurrence maps and the separation maps are available to download for your own use. As with other BGS data sets available for download, this will enable you to work offline to develop your own systems and methodologies using BGS data. The data used to produce the aquifer, shale and clay maps are available below as ESRI GIS and KML files.

This dataset was generated with a novel process-based stochastic modelling approach to investigate the productivity and sustainability of groundwater abstractions in the Precambrian basement aquifer in Ghana. The statistical distribution of the generated synthetic yield data was found in very good agreement with observed yield data from the same Ghanaian aquifer. The dataset includes more than 40,000 simulated values of maximum allowable yield and corresponding transmissivity values for different realisations of aquifer heterogeneity, net recharge values, and borehole depth. Further details about the dataset and the method of generation and collection can be found in the article by Bianchi et al. (2020) "Investigating the productivity and sustainability of weathered basement aquifers in tropical Africa using numerical simulation and global sensitivity analysis" published in the Water Resources Research journal. This research was supported by the UKRI British Geological Survey NC-ODA grant NE/R000069/1 and NE/M008827/1.

This layer of the map based index (GeoIndex) shows where aquifer vulnerability maps are available for England and Wales. These maps identify areas in which the groundwater resources require protection from potentially polluting activities. The maps are designed to be used by planners, developers, consultants and regulatory bodies to ensure that developments conform to the Policy and Practice of the Environment Agency for the protection of Groundwater. The Soil Survey, Land Research Centre and the British Geological Survey were commissioned by the Environment Agency to prepare 53 groundwater vulnerability maps at 1:100,000 scale. Currently we are unable to provide scanned copies of these maps due to Copyright restrictions. Please note that these maps are based on data from the late 1980's and early 1990's. More up-to-date digital data may now be available from the Environment Agency.

(I) Handpump Vibration Data For each handpump, data is organized in one CSV file per day. These files are grouped together over batches, where each batch approximately corresponds to three months. (II) Borehole Water Level Data Water level data at the borehole of each handpump is recorded in one CSV file per handpump. Both uncompensated (raw) and compensated (with respect to atmospheric pressure) data are available. (III) Data Time Logs A separate Excel file lists the locations of the monitoring sites and the time logs corresponding to both (I) and (II) per handpump. References: [1] P. Thomson, R. Hope, and T. Foster, “GSM-enabled remote monitoring of rural handpumps: a proof-of-concept study,” Journal of Hydroinformatics, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 829–839, 05 2012. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.2166/hydro.2012.183 [2] F. Colchester, “Smart handpumps: a preliminary data analysis,” IET Conference Proceedings, pp. 7–7(1). [Online]. Available: https://digital-library.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp.2014.0767 [3] H. Greeff, A. Manandhar, P. Thomson, R. Hope, and D. A. Clifton, “Distributed inference condition monitoring system for rural infrastructure in the developing world,” IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 19, no. 5, pp.1820–1828, March 2019. [4] F. E. Colchester, H. G. Marais, P. Thomson, R. Hope, and D. A. Clifton, “Accidental infrastructure for groundwater monitoring in africa,” Environmental Modelling Software, vol. 91, pp. 241 – 250, 2017. [Online]. Available:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364815216308325 [5] A. Manandhar, H. Greeff, P. Thomson, R. Hope, and D. A. Clifton, “Shallow Aquifer Monitoring Using Handpump Vibration Data,” In-review, 2019.

The map shows the potential for the rocks to supply groundwater and the type of groundwater flow within the rocks. The dataset reattributes polygons in the Digital Geological Map Data of Great Britain - 625k (DiGMapGB-625) Bedrock version 5 dataset to indicate whether the bedrock is an aquifer, the type of flow through the aquifer (fracture and fissure flow or intergranular flow) and how productive the aquifer is likely to be. The dataset is based on the known hydrogeological properties of rock types. The dataset covers just the bedrock formations for the UK and the Isle of Man. The data can be used for planning, environmental analysis, water supply and hazards.

Digitised versions of a set of 1:100,000 scale maps of aquifer vulnerability for England and Wales. The dataset identifies the vulnerability to pollution of major and minor aquifers as defined by the Environment Agency, utilising a combination of geological, hydrogeological and soils data. The maps are designed to be used by planners, developers, consultants and regulatory bodies to ensure that developments conform to the Policy and Practice of the Environment Agency for the protection of Groundwater. Please note that these maps are based on data from the late 1980's and early 1990's, more up-to-date digital data may now be available from the Environment Agency. Flat maps may be purchased from the BGS, some sheets are now out of print.

The hydrogeological map indicates aquifer potential in generalised terms using a threefold division of geological formations: those in which intergranular flow in the saturated zone is dominant, those in which flow is controlled by fissures or discontinuities and less permeable formations including aquifers concealed at depth beneath covering layers. Highly productive aquifers are distinguished from those that are only of local importance or have no significant groundwater. Within each of these classes the strata are grouped together according to age or lithology. The 1:625 000 scale data may be used as a guide to the aquifers at a regional or national level, but should not be relied on for local information.