How the NPS is protecting groundwater for people and ecosystems

A young visitor fills a bottle with fresh Roaring Springs water from the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. NPS/Michael Quinn

Picture this: you’re visiting a national park in a desert landscape, and you spend your day exploring by foot in the summer heat. After seeing the sites that you had bookmarked in your visitor guidebook, you’re ready to relax and rehydrate, so you go to the visitor center, find the water spigot, and turn it on. Instantly, you get a nice, cool refill of water in your bottle, and you find a shady spot to sip and sit for a bit before you get back to it.

National Park Service (NPS) staff have provided a comfortable experience for you to access drinking water in an arid part of the world where plants and animals have very limited amounts of water to survive. But the convenience of this refreshing water supply may hide just how much planning and research goes into making drinking water available to millions of park visitors and staff each year, and the extent to which those waters are connected to natural and cultural features and processes that attract people to national parks.

…what does it really take to make water available for human use in national parks, while also managing natural and cultural resources to be “unimpaired”?

Across its more than 430 park units, the NPS manages countless streams, springs, wetlands, and other water resources. The core mission of the NPS is “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations” as stated in the Organic Act of 1916.

Specifically for water, fulfilling this mission means the NPS must maintain sustainable water supplies for natural resources, cultural resources, and human uses in park operations. Particularly in arid parks where rain is limited and groundwater often supports most human and ecological water needs, this can be a delicate balance and major challenge. These days, sustainable water supply challenges are magnified by climate change and increasing demands on existing water supplies.

So, what does it really take to make water available for human use in national parks, while also managing natural and cultural resources to be “unimpaired”?

To understand this, let’s dive into why groundwater is a critical resource for humans, plants, and animals.

What is groundwater and why is it an important resource to conserve?

Groundwater flows underground through cracks and pores in rocks and sediment that make up water storage systems known as aquifers. Groundwater represents about 30% of all freshwater on Earth. By comparison, about 69% of Earth’s freshwater is stored in glaciers and ice caps and the remaining 1% of freshwater is found in lakes, streams, swamps, permafrost, and the atmosphere.

Humans can access groundwater by drilling wells or visiting springs, where groundwater naturally flows out of the ground and can be accessed at the surface. Plants and animals access groundwater where it flows near or above the ground surface, commonly near springs, streams, and wetlands.

Groundwater plays a critical role in the water cycle.

If you want a refresher on the components and complexities of the water cycle, check out the following resources from the US Geological Survey:

Throughout the NPS, groundwater supports lakes, streams, wetlands, estuaries, springs, geothermal features, and associated ecosystems, some of which visitors may be familiar with, such as Yellowstone’s famous […]

Full article: www.nps.gov