Georiga Water Science Center

Water—Essential Resource of the Southern Flint River Basin, Georgia

U.S. Geological Survey General Interest Publication 4


Ground-Water/Surface-Water Interaction

diagram of a cross-section view of ground-water and surface-water interactionThe lower Flint River subbasin is characterized by karst topography in which sinkholes, caves, and underground drainage have formed because of dissolution of limestone comprising the Upper Floridan aquifer. Lack of tributaries and little surface-water drainage between Albany and Lake Seminole indicates under-ground drainage; most surface water either flows into wetlands and then seeps into the ground, or infiltrates directly into the ground.


 

maps of stream reaches where flow was from the stream to the aquifer mussel photographStream reaches sensiitive to additional pumpage, with mussel sites
Stream seepage along Muckalee Creek near Leesburg, Georgia, (A) October 1999 and (B) August 2000. The Upper Floridan aquifer typically discharges water to stream channels, which constitutes the majority of baseflow. Drought conditions typically decrease both runoff and ground-water discharge to streams. These decreases, from May 1998 through August 2000, resulted in record or near-record low streamflows occurred throughout the subbasins (Mosner, 2002).

A ground-water model was used to simulate stream reach sensitivity to ground-water pumpage for sites containing federally protected mussel species such as the purple bankclimber (Elliptoideus sloatianus) in the lower Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint River Basin (Albertson and Torak, 2002).


Introduction | Map | Hydrogeology | Economics | Water Quality | Ground-Water/Surface-Water | Wildlife | Drought Protection Act | Protection | Flood Tracking | Timeline | References

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