Abstract
Access to clean drinking water is a cornerstone of community resilience and sustainability. Contaminated drinking water can expose people to a variety of pollutants and pathogens increasing the burden of disease within the community. Here, we focus on community sustainability by assessing multiple stressors on groundwater quality in the Alabama Gulf Coast. Geochemistry, land use, and climate change can all act as stressors on groundwater quality. Understanding groundwater quality in domestic wells can help to answer questions about mechanistic stressors on groundwater contamination like, (i) how does the underlying aquifer geology control variations in groundwater chemistry?, (ii) how does proximity to agricultural land affect domestic well water quality?, (iii) what geochemical and geophysical variables predict groundwater contamination?, and (iv) what relationships exist between precipitation, flooding, and other extreme events and contaminant concentrations in well water? Together, these efforts will enhance community sustainability in the AL Gulf Coast.
Purpose
This study examines private well water quality in southern Alabama. This region is part of the Coastal Lowlands Aquifer system, which supplies private well water to approximately 1.2 million people, with nearly 70,000 people relying on private well water in southern Alabama. The two coastal counties in southern Alabama were selected for this study as part of the Alabama Center of Excellence focused on coastal community sustainability. Sampling campaigns were conducted in September-October 2022, April-May 2023, September 2023, and May 2024 as participants joined the program. A total of 43 wells sampled, and some wells were tested more than once in the study so that a total of 126 well water samples were collected. This study underscores the need to understand both geologic and anthropogenic factors that relate to well water quality at the regional and local scale.
DOI: 10.57778/yrre-rm02
Suggested Citation
Ojeda, A. S. (2024). Groundwater quality measurements in Southern Alabama [Data set]. Dauphin Island Sea Lab. https://doi.org/10.57778/YRRE-RM02
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