Print this page Groundwater Engineering for Water Supplies - Design, Construction, and Operation of Water Supply Wells
Conrad G. Leszkiewicz, PhD, PE, PG
Course Outline
The dominant application of groundwater engineering is the provision of water supplies for municipalities, agriculture, and industries. Groundwater is the earth’s most abundant available fresh water source, exceeding that in all of the fresh water surface bodies on earth. With increasing demands for water from growing world populations, agriculture, and industry, as well as growing intermittent, if not long-term, shortages of surface water due to droughts, groundwater is becoming an even more important source of fresh water for society.
This 10-hour course is the third part of a three-part series that will provide the essential tools necessary for effective groundwater engineering for the development of water supplies. It will introduce the reader to the fundamentals of water well drilling, construction methods, well design and well acceptance tests, specific capacity of the well(s), well field design, natural and anthropogenic impacts to water quality, potential problems to be expected during operation, and methods for mitigation. It will also provide basic information on well protection and operation.
This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to
enhance the understanding of the course materials.
Learning Objective
At the conclusion of this course, the student would have learned the following:
- Become familiar with water well construction methods;
- Become familiar with and the importance of well logs;
- The fundamentals of how water supply wells are designed;
- Understand well acceptance tests and the concept of well efficiency;
- Understand the water well specific capacity and relationship to transmissivity;
- Knowledge of the basic components of water well-field design;
- Know the importance of accurately measuring water levels and pumping rates;
- Natural variables that affect groundwater quality;
- About anthropogenic variables that affect groundwater quality;
- Understand what saltwater intrusion is and how to manage It;
- Understand the importance of well and well field protection;
- Have the ability to evaluate and correct problems in observed decline in water yield;
- Have the ability to evaluate and correct problems in observed decline in water quality.
The subject matter of this course will be of benefit to professionals involved in water resource development including civil-environmental engineers, geohydrologists, and others concerned with groundwater resources.
Benefit to Attendees
The course serves as both a succinct, yet comprehensive, introduction to water supply well design and as a refresher to more experienced professionals.
Course
Introduction
In this course you will learn the fundamentals of how water supply wells are constructed, how to design and test water-supply wells; evaluate factors affecting water supply well performance; and assess variables that potentially impact water quality.
Course Content
In this lesson, you are required to download and study of the following documents: US Geological Survey (USGS) Water Supply Paper No. 2220, Basic Groundwater Hydrology, 2004 Revised; Ralph C. Heath, pages 42-43 and 52-80; the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Ground Water Manual, 2nd edition, 1995, Chapter I, pages 11-18, Chapter III, pages 86-90 and 98-100, Chapter IV, pages 111-125, Chapter VI, pages 166-176, Chapter IX, pages 292-303, Chapter XII, pages 493-507, and Chapter XVI, pages 615-638. The quiz is based on the above publications.
Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you still experience any difficulty in downloading or opening this file, you may need to close some applications or reboot your computer to free up some memory.
Course Summary
This course covers the essentials of how to construct, design, and operate water-supply wells for municipalities, agriculture, and industry and the monitoring of yield and quality of water.
Quiz
Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.
DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.
