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SELECTION, INSTALLATION, AND DOCUMENTATION OF WELLS, <br />AND COLLECTION OF RELATED DATA <br />General guidance as well as the protocols required or procedures recommended for the <br />selection, installation, and documentation of wells used in the NAWQA Program are provided <br />in this report. For more extensive guidance and explanation of well-selection and well-installa- <br />tion procedures, the reader is referred to the companion report being prepared by the Office of <br />Water Quality (see footnote 1). <br />Requirements differ for the quality and types of data needed from wells for Study-Unit Sur- <br />veys, Land-Use Studies, and Flowpath Studies. Most wells selected for a Study-Unit Survey will <br />be water-supply wells. Monitoring wells will be installed for Land-Use Studies and Flowpath <br />Studies because water-supply wells generally will not be suitable for those studies. <br />In this report, the term "water-supply well" is used to describe wells used for domestic, <br />municipal, commercial, industrial, and irrigation supply. The term "observation well" is used to <br />describe a well in which only water levels are measured. The term "monitoring well" is used to <br />describe a well whose primary purpose is sampling or direct measurement of water quality. <br />Well Selection <br />Selection of wells for Study-Unit Investigations involves (1) developing well-selection <br />criteria that address data-collection objectives, and (2) performing an inventory of water-supply, <br />observation, and monitoring wells in the locale of interest. Ultimately the decision to select a <br />well for NAWQA ground-water studies will be based on criteria (table 3) to determine that data <br />collected from the well are suitable for the intended use and from well-inventory information. <br />Documentation of the well-selection process includes the following: the selection criteria, <br />including their order of application and the reasons for the criteria; the locations of wells consid- <br />ered for selection; the characteristics of each well site, including ownership and access; well <br />design; methods of installation; and water-quality and other ancillary data and information that <br />supported selection or rejection of the well. <br />Well-Selection Criteria <br />Well-selection criteria aid in ensuring that data collected from the wells will meet the <br />respective study-component objective(s) (table 1). These criteria are applied in screening and <br />selecting all or a subset of the inventoried wells. <br />Table 3 outlines minimum criteria for selecting wells for water-quality monitoring. Table <br />3 also provides specific criteria that are study-objective driven for wells associated with each of <br />the NAWQA study components. Application of the selection criteria specific to each study com- <br />ponent requires that all available information about wells in the study area be collected and in- <br />cluded in the well inventory.