Digital Mapping Techniques '99 -- Workshop Proceedings
U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 99-386

Ground Water Atlas of the United States

U.S. Geological Survey
505 Science Drive
Madison, WI 53711-1061
Telephone: (608) 238-9333 x141
Fax: (608) 238-9334
e-mail: gdlatzke@usgs.gov

The Ground Water Atlas of the United States presents a comprehensive summary of the Nation's ground-water resources, and is a basic reference for the location, geography, geology, and hydrologic characteristics of the major aquifers in the Nation. The information was collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and other agencies during the course of many years of study. Results of the U.S. Geological Survey's Regional Aquifer-System Analysis Program, a systematic study of the Nation's major aquifers, were used as a major, but not exclusive, source of information for compilation of the Atlas. The Atlas includes 14 chapters, 13 of which are published separately, representing regional areas that collectively cover the 50 States and Puerto Rico. These chapters are published in the Hydrologic Atlas series with numbers ranging from HA-730B through HA-730N. The remaining chapter, Chapter A, serves as an introduction and national summary. Chapters will also be collated into a single bound volume (figure 1).

The main objective of the Ground Water Atlas was to produce an attractive and easy to follow product with text, charts, photos, cross sections and diagrams which explain technical terms in simple language. It attempts to clearly illustrate the principles that govern the movement and occurrence of ground water in different geologic and topographic settings. To accomplish this task, hydrologists from the Water Resource Division of the USGS were assigned to each of the 14 chapters based on their knowledge of the ground water in the area. The authors compiled from previously published reports. Graphics and maps from a variety of sources were used or modified and original graphics were added where needed. Graphics and text were forwarded to a USGS office, the Cartography and Publishing Program (CAPP) in Madison, Wisconsin, for publication production.

The coordination of design for the atlas series was an enormous task, selecting colors, patterns and cartographic symbolization for each aquifer and insuring that those design decisions made in the early chapters could be applied to all 14 chapters. In its history, production methods for the Ground Water Atlas have changed from exclusively traditional to exclusively digital cartographic methods. A publication requirement was to make all chapters appear like a single product regardless of the production methods used. The first two chapters, 730-G and 730-J, were done using traditional cartographic methods, needing scribe coats, peel coats, type flaps and many hours of darkroom work to produce. The following two chapters, 730-H and 730-C, had incorporated digital elements in their production. Basemap line work was created in Arc/Info using USGS DLGs imported into Adobe Illustrator on the Macintosh platform for annotation. Other simple graphics were completed in Illustrator as well and imaged to a page-size image setter. With the addition of a large size film plotter in 1993, the next chapter, 730-K, and all subsequent chapters have been produced digitally. Arc/Info was used for all base and aquifer outcrop data, Adobe Illustrator for figure production, Adobe Photoshop for photo manipulation, and Adobe PageMaker for text, layout and creating separates. Producing these chapters digitally has saved time in production, eliminated almost all darkroom work and cut the time spent making corrections by 80 percent.

As of mid 1999, 12 of the 13 regional chapters have been published and are available. Chapter 730-N is expected to be published late in 1999 (figure 2). The bound hard cover volume of all 14 chapters is also expected to be released in fiscal year 2000. Several chapters are available at the following web site: http://wwwcapp.er.usgs.gov/publicdocs/gwa/. This web site, which is currently under construction, will contain all 14 chapters when completed. Chapters produced using traditional cartographic methods will be available for viewing as JPEGs and downloadable in TIFF file format. Chapters produced using digital cartographic methods will be viewable as GIF files and downloadable as compressed EPS files.

As a result of the Ground Water Atlas activities, a national map, the "Principal Aquifers of the United States", and an associated data set have been published and are available as part of the ìNational Atlas of United States ôî. The data and map describe the distribution of principal aquifers across the country with each aquifer being classified as one of six geologic material types. The data and printed map are available from the ìNational Atlas of United Statesî web site at: http://www-atlas.usgs.gov/atlasmap.html. The aquifer data is downloadable in several formats including SDTS, shape files or ARC export file format. Links to the aquifer data and metadata can be found from either the Ground Water Atlas or National Atlas of the US web sites.

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