Water-Level Conditions in Selected Confined Aquifers of the New Jersey and Delaware Coastal Plain, 2003

The Coastal Plain aquifers of New Jersey provide an important source of water for more than 2 million people. Steadily increasing withdrawals from the late 1800s to the early 1990s resulted in declining water levels and the formation of regional cones of depression. In addition to decreasing water supplies, declining water levels in the confined aquifers have led to reversals in natural hydraulic gradients that have, in some areas, induced the flow of saline water from surfacewater bodies and adjacent aquifers to freshwater aquifers. In 1978, the U.S. Geological Survey began mapping the potentiometric surfaces of the major confined aquifers of New Jersey every 5 years in order to provide a regional assessment of ground-water conditions in multiple Coastal Plain aquifers concurrently. In 1988, mapping of selected potentiometric surfaces was extended into Delaware.