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MODFLOW-NWT model used to assess groundwater availability in the uppermost principal aquifer systems of the Williston structural basin, United States and Canada

Metadata Updated: November 30, 2024

A three-dimensional groundwater flow model was developed to characterize groundwater resources the uppermost principal aquifers in the Williston structural basin in parts of Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota in the United States and of Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada as part of a detailed assessment of the groundwater availability of the area. The uppermost principal aquifers are comprised of the glacial, lower Tertiary, and Upper Cretaceous aquifer systems. The model was developed as a part of the U.S. Geological Survey Water Availability and Use Science Program's effort to conduct large-scale multidisciplinary regional studies of groundwater availability. The numerical model is intended to be used to (1) simulate hydrologic scenarios of interest to groundwater managers and to advance the understanding of groundwater budgets and components including recharge, discharge, and aquifer storage for the entire system, (2) compute historical and projected system response to natural and anthropogenic stresses, and (3) evaluate potential hydrologic monitoring programs at a scale relevant to basin-wide water-management decisions. The three-dimensional groundwater-flow model was developed using the numerical modeling software, MODFLOW-NWT. The steady-state (mean) hydrological conditions included data from 1981 to 2005, and transient (temporally-varying) conditions included a combination of a steady state period with data prior to 1960, and a transient period from 1961 to 2005. The model was calibrated by attempting to match simulated and measured or estimated hydraulic heads, differences in hydraulic heads between aquifers, stream base flow, and measured flow at flowing artesian wells. Sub-regional water budgets for the model area were produced with ZONEBUDGET.

This USGS data release contains all of the input and output files for the model described in the associated model documentation report (https://doi.org/10.3133/sir201755158). This data release also includes (1) MODFLOW-NWT (version 1.0.9) source code, and (2) ZONEBUDGET source code.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date May 31, 2023
Metadata Updated Date November 30, 2024

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date May 31, 2023
Metadata Updated Date November 30, 2024
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
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Identifier USGS:50221198-95fb-4d21-b1e1-da0fba95df06
Data Last Modified 20201117
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 2f9a15a0-3d21-44d6-996a-582ebc8dd105
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -108.801363,44.308885,-98.345982,50.928058
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash a9415d3ee68d4b9a3a44088b548bf9ce0793cc55e79ee4b0be1fd910bcaa8984
Source Schema Version 1.1
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