National Brackish Groundwater Assessment 2017

Brackish groundwater (BGW), defined for this assessment as having a dissolved-solids concentration between 1,000 and 10,000 milligrams per liter, is an unconventional source of water that may offer a partial solution to current (2016) and future water challenges. In support of the National Water Census, the U.S. Geological Survey has completed a BGW assessment to gain a better understanding of the occurrence and characteristics of BGW resources of the United States as an alternative source of water. Analyses completed as part of this assessment relied on previously collected data from multiple sources, and no new data were collected. One of the most important contributions of this assessment was the creation of a database containing chemical data and aquifer information for the known quantities of BGW in the United States. Data were compiled from single publications to large datasets and from local studies to national assessments, and includes chemical data on the concentrations of dissolved solids, major ions, trace elements, nutrients, radionuclides, and physical properties of the resource (pH, temperature, specific conductance). This database represents data from a compilation of water-quality samples from 100,000+ (major-ions data) to 300,000+ (dissolved-solids data) groundwater wells across the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. The data are published here as an ESRI geodatabase with a point feature class and associated attribute table, and also as non-proprietary comma-separated value table. It was not possible to compile all data available for the Nation, and data selected for this investigation were mostly limited to larger datasets that were available in a digital format.