A new report from the US Geological Survey has been made available entitled Assessing Ground-Water Vulnerability to Contamination: Providing Scientifically Defensible Information for Decision Makers. The report provides a look at the common approaches used to scientifically determine the factors controlling the vulnerability of groundwater resources to contamination. The introduction states that...

Since its inception in 1991, the USGS National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program has been collecting and analyzing data about more than 50 major river basins and aquifers across the United States. The core mission is "to develop long-term consistent and comparable information on streams, ground water, and aquatic ecosystems to support sound management and policy decisions." Visitors can...