Version History for U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2023-3024

A Century of Hydrologic Data Collection Prepares Western Long Island for Current and Future Water-Resources Challenges

By Robert F. Breault, John P. Masterson, Ronald Busciolano, and Irene Fisher

-----------------------------------------------------
First posted online June 22, 2023

-----------------------------------------------------
Revised and reposted July 20, 2023 as version 1.1

On page 1 of the text:
Added a callout to Masterson and Breault (2019).
Revised the last two sentences of the second paragraph to read "On Long Island, groundwater is primarily stored three such water-bearing units: the upper glacial, Magothy, and Lloyd aquifers. Collectively, these three aquifers—along with intervening layers of poorly permeable sediments (referred to as confining units) and other smaller more localized aquifers—are known as the Long Island aquifer system (fig. 1)."
Revised the second sentence of the third paragraph to read "Fortunately, for more than 100 years, government entities, including the Nassau County Department of Public Works (DPW), New York State, and several towns and local water districts, have supported the collection of groundwater information."
Revised the second sentence of the fourth paragraph to read "In Nassau County, the USGS partners directly with the DPW and others to monitor streamflow, groundwater, water quality, and water use."
Combined the fifth paragraph into the fourth paragraph and revised the sentences to read "These partnerships currently [2023] support 6 streamgages, 1 lake-level station, and 168 groundwater-monitoring wells that characterize conditions in the upper glacial, Magothy, and Lloyd aquifers (fig. 2; U.S. Geological Survey, 2022). Frequent-interval (once every 15 minutes) measurements of streamflow (6 sites), lake level (1 site), and groundwater elevation (18 sites) at 25 of the sites are electronically transmitted directly to the USGS National Water Information System (NWIS) database (U.S. Geological Survey, 2023) in near-real time. At the remaining groundwater sites, water levels are measured by USGS hydrographers, either monthly or annually, and entered into NWIS manually. Data in NWIS are stored and made available in perpetuity."
On page 2, updated the caption for figure 2 by adding "DPW, Department of Public Works." at the end of the caption and revising the figure to update the data points.
On page 3 of the text, changed the last sentence of the last paragraph to read "These data are used to construct depth-to-water maps (fig. 4; U.S. Geological Survey, 2019) that in turn are used in hydrogeologic investigations throughout the island and are used by water-resources managers and public-water suppliers for aquifer management and planning purposes (Como and others, 2018)."
On page 4 of the text, revised the Como and others (2015) reference to Como and others (2018).