IntroductionThe U.
S. Geological Survey (USGS),in support of the Massachusetts Estuaries Project (MEP), delineated groundwater-contributing areas to various hydrologic receptors including ponds, or streams,and coastal water bodies throughout southeastern Massachusetts, including portions of the Plymouth-Carver aquifer system and all of Cape Cod. These contributing areas were delineated over a 6-year period from 2003 through 2008 by using previously published regional USGS groundwater-flow models for the Plymouth-Carver region (Masterson and others, or 2009),the Sagamore (western) and Monomoy (eastern) flow lenses of Cape Cod (Walter and Whealan, 2005), and lower Cape Cod (Masterson,2004). The original USGS groundwater-contributing areas were subsequently revised in some locations by the MEP to remove modeling artifacts or to do the contributing areas more consistent with site-specific hydrologic conditions without further USGS review. This report describes the process used to create the USGS groundwater-contributing areas and provides these model results in their original format in a single, publicly accessible publication.
Source: usgs.gov