5 Uses of Well Record Databases

Well record databases are a critical source of information for the effective management of groundwater and are utilized by diverse groups of users ranging from homeowners and realtors to well contractors, groundwater managers and researchers. The databases are important for the sound management of groundwater resources, and the availability of these databases tends to increase confidence in the management and use of the resource.

Critical information provided by well record databases includes the location and construction of water wells and details about the aquifer supplying the water well. Following the release of a groundwater contaminant, this information is commonly used to assess the extent to which nearby water wells are vulnerable to contamination, and how many people may be potentially exposed. Some other common uses of well record databases include the following.

• Evaluating water well quality for home buyers and sellers during property transactions.
• Evaluating well construction details for well owners in the event that well repairs or modifications are required, or to diagnose or repair well water quality issues.
• Determining the ongoing capacity of the well to produce water as compared to initial static water level and well performance (i.e., the volumetric rate of discharge per unit decline in well water level).
• Monitoring of trends in the well construction industry.
• Checking regulatory compliance (e.g., ensuring contractors are performing work properly, by documenting whether well construction complies with regulatory requirements in terms of construction, materials, clearance distances).
• Monitoring of trends in groundwater use and reliance on domestic wells to support estimates of groundwater utilization and demographics of drinking water supply.
• Assessing environmental impacts and approving industrial activities (e.g., assessment of the impact of various activities on domestic well users and where to focus risk management activities).
• Mapping exposure and targeting interventions (e.g., awareness programs, well water quality testing programs) based on the distribution of domestic wells relative to the location of areas of naturally occurring groundwater contaminants.

Well record databases are also used for a wide variety of scientific purposes by professional geoscientists and researchers. These databases serve as a critical tool for hydrogeologists to develop a three-dimensional understanding of the hydrogeologic system for studies of aquifer vulnerability (e.g., Stempvoort et al., 1992), aquifer mapping (e.g., Reeves et al., 2017) or groundwater flow modeling (e.g., Camp and Brown, 1993). Other common applications of these databases include groundwater exploration, regional groundwater resource assessment, oil and gas reservoir modeling, groundwater recharge and flow model calibrations, and hydraulic conductivity, water yield and water use estimates.

Although there are biases and data quality issues associated with these datasets (see Section 6, Shortcomings of Well Record Databases), they tend to contain a large number of records and can be useful (given the appropriate data quality filters) in capturing regional trends without the errors and biases significantly affecting scientific conclusions. Box 3, Box 4, Box 5, Box 6, and Box 7 provide examples of recent research projects that have used well record databases. The large and growing volume of data contained in well record databases (Figure 7) makes them suitable for big data and artificial intelligence analysis.

It is critical that the beneficial uses of well record databases for the various types of users be promoted through education and outreach efforts to foster support for the continued maintenance and improvement of these databases, or the initiation of well record data collection in those jurisdictions lacking a program. For example, domestic well owners should be educated on the type of information recorded by contractors on well record forms, and how this information may be used by the well owner as part of on-going well stewardship activities.

Figure 7 – Cumulative number of well records in the Ontario Water Well Information System from the 1920s to 2019 (Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks, 2021).

Well water quality data are the next most common type of domestic well data collected by government organizations after water well records. In some jurisdictions, governments conduct domestic well water quality survey programs or have developed a system for the collection and organization of domestic well water quality results, but there is rarely a regulatory requirement for the submission of these data. Open sharing of water quality datasets can be more challenging compared to water well records because domestic well owners may be concerned that the publication of their data will negatively impact property values or insurance rates (Zipper et al., 2019), or given that providing the information is voluntary, they prefer it remain confidential. Hence, well water quality databases are often used only for internal purposes, such as human health risk assessments, and are not usually available in a digital, publicly accessible format. In other cases, well water quality data may be published but the data is aggregated or the sampling location is anonymized by moving it to a less accurate map reference location (i.e., topographical or land subdivision map).