Chapter IV 



GROUND-WATER PROBLEMS 



RESULTING FROM LAND 



OCCUPANCY 



Most of the serious ground-water problems facing the coun- 

 try today have resulted from our efforts to develop and use 

 the water stored underground. If there is now less water un- 

 derground than might be desirable, it is because this develop- 

 ment and use has been unbalanced in some respects. But 

 ground-water storage has also been modified significantly by 

 our use of the land, or by our methods of disposing of wastes 

 or protecting ourselves from floods or providing channels for 

 navigation, or by other activities. Too often the effects of these 

 activities upon ground water have been unintended and un- 

 foreseen; some have been beneficial, others detrimental either 

 to the user of the land or to the user of ground water in the 

 affected area. 



The incidental effects of land occupancy upon ground-water 

 storage are not nearly so well documented by scientific inves- 

 tigation as are the effects of ground-water development and 

 use. In a few instances those changes have been so marked that 

 hydrologic studies have been made in order to determine 

 proper corrective measures. For the most part, however, the 

 records as to changes in storage in undeveloped ground-water 

 reservoirs are limited to the fragmentary accounts of untrained 

 observers, and there has been no comprehensive analysis of 

 those changes to determine their causes. 



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