Tap pin g our under g round resource 



You walk to the faucet, turn the knob and out 

 pours cup after cup of water. 



But where does that water come from? 



At first thought, you'd probably answer the 

 county reservoir or your backyard well. 



But that's only an intermediate stop in the 

 water's path to your faucet. 



Where does it really come from? 



For 55 percent of North Carolina's residents, it's 

 drawn from the ground and is aptly called 

 "groundwater." 



To drink, flush, wash and rinse. North Caro- 

 linians withdraw about 770 million— over three 

 quarters of a billion— gallons of water from below 

 the earth's surface each day. 



That's a large amount of a limited resource. 



Less than 3 percent of the earth's trillions of 

 gallons of water is fresh. And three-fourths of that 

 3 percent is frozen in polar ice caps and glaciers. 



About one-half of 1 percent of the world's fresh 

 water is groundwater. And 1/50th of 1 percent 

 empties into rivers, lakes and streams. 



Sure, rainfall replenishes groundwater supplies. 

 But perhaps not fast enough. 



Rain must trickle through foot after foot of soil 

 to reach natural storage areas. It can take days. 



weeks or months, depending on the topography, 

 soil characteristics, vegetation, land use and 

 precipitation amounts. 



But in just minutes a pump and well can send 

 gallons of this collected moisture shooting to the 

 surface for industrial, agricultural, municipal and 

 residential use. 



A breakdown of groundwater use in North 

 Carolina follows this pattern: 64 percent in- 

 dustrial, 18 percent residential, 9 percent 

 agricultural and 9 percent municipal. 



Along the state's Outer Banks and Coastal Plain, 

 most municipalities, industries and residents 

 quench their needs with groundwater. 



In the Coastal Plain, wells suck water from large 

 underground aquifers. Aquifers are layers of 

 porous rocks that yield water. 



Contrary to popular belief, there is no subter- 

 ranean lake or river flowing beneath our feet. 



Instead water collects between and inside 

 porous rocks such as limestone. It moves verti- 

 cally and horizontally as it slips and slides in con- 

 tour with the earth's surface. 



Geologically speaking, underground water 

 divides into two zones. 



The zone immediately beneath the land's sur- 



Adapted from "The Earth's Dynamic Systems" 



