Guam Water Resources Monitoring Program
Guam Water Resources Monitoring Program
Presented on Thursday, December 6, 2018
The water resource monitoring program for the Northern Guam Lens Aquifer (NGLA), designated a Sole Source Aquifer in 1978 by the U.S. EPA, had been established in the 1950s by the USGS. However, in the 1990s, this program was forced to downsize when funding from the local government could not be met, which resulted in data disruption to deep well monitoring for saltwater intrusion in the north and stream gage data in the south. In 1998 the Comprehensive Water Monitoring Program (Guam Public Law 24-161) became a permanent program of the Water and Environmental Research Institute (WERI) of the Western Pacific and resulted in the refurbishment of the deep monitoring wells and a renewed program of water resource monitoring on Guam. In the same year, the Guam Hydrologic Survey (Guam Public Law 24-247) was made a permanent program, administered by WERI, to develop an inter-agency cooperation for gathering and publicly providing water and environmental information. Current withdrawals from production wells estimate to 40 Mgal/d. Over the next decade, population growth, inclusive of the proposed military forces relocation, projects a production increase as much as 25 percent. Increased withdrawals, in the long-term, were modeled to result in a decline in water levels and a rise in the freshwater-saltwater transition zone. To assist with water-resource management, an inter-agency framework for information sharing and decision making has been established with a Memorandum of Understanding, signed in 2010, under the Monitoring System Expansion and Rehabilitation Program. 7 new deep monitoring wells will be drilled, and 12 existing monitoring wells will be rehabilitated to expand groundwater monitoring from only two NGLA sub-basins to include the remaining four sub-basins. As partners in the island's technical/scientific experts group, WERI and the USGS will assume data collection, analyses, and reporting, to provide best practices for sustainable management.
Kalyn Bautista
Water & Environmental Research Institute of the Western Pacific, University of Guam
Kaylyn K. Bautista is a recent graduate from the Water and Environmental Research Institute at the University of Guam. Although her graduate studies emphasized karst hydrology, she had the fortunate opportunity to collaborate on projects in Guam involving field work on well water chemistry and instrumentation, coastal discharge site documentation - springs, fractures, and caves, contact spring instrumentation, and cave surveying and mapping. She resides in Guam with her husband, John, and three daughters.
John Jenson, PhD
Water & Environmental Research Institute of the Western Pacific, University of Guam
Dr Jenson is Professor of Groundwater Hydrology, and Director of the University of Guam's Water & Environmental Research Institute of the Western Pacific (WERI). His current research interests include development of the Carbonate Island Karst Model and its application to numerical modeling and sustainable management of island karst aquifers.
Nathan Habana, PhD
Water & Environmental Research Institute of the Western Pacific, University of Guam, Mangilao, Guam
Dr Habana is Assistant Professor of Groundwater Hydrology at the University of Guam's Water & Environmental Research Institute of the Western Pacific (WERI). His duties at WERI include serving as Coordinator for the Guam Hydrologic Survey Program, which compiles and analyzes basic data on Guam’s freshwater resources. His current research interests include modeling of vadose and phreatic transport, and the management of salinity and nitrate contamination in island aquifers.
Yong Sang Kim, PhD
Water & Environmental Research Institute of the Western Pacific, University of Guam, Mangilao, Guam
Dr. Kim’s research interests include all aspects of sustainable water resource management relevant to groundwater depletion, contamination and interaction with sea/surface water. Recent work on Guam includes management of monitoring well database and the Guam Hydrologic Survey website (www.guamhydrologicsurvey.com). In addition, researches on production-recovery characteristics of Northern Guam Lens Aquifer (NGLA) to supply sustainable drinking water on Guam communities are being established.