Evaluating Historical Well Data for Characterizing Regional Scale Aquifer Potential

Summary The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) is establishing a framework for characterizing regional scale aquifer potential. This is a data intensive task that requires a large amount of data from multiple sources. One key component in the project is the hydrogeologic characterization of mapped geologic units that currently host aquifers. The Groundwater Information Center (GIC) Groundwater Data from Alberta Environment is one data source that has extensive coverage across the province of Alberta and can be used for the project. The GIC data provides borehole and historical hydrogeologic data that is here evaluated to determine its suitability for characterizing regional scale aquifer potential. Findings show that historical hydrogeologic data associated with lithology data from boreholes grouped into two broad geology classes and three well completion types can successfully be used to distinguish distinct hydrogeologic properties for geologic units mapped at four different scales.