USGS New York Spatial Datasets

Title: Upstate New York Surficial Aquifer Mapping Program

Description: In 2006, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) cooperatively funded a Brownfield and Groundwater GIS Program as required by the 2003 legislation that established a Brownfield Cleanup Program (NYS Assembly Bill 9120). The NYSDEC developed an implementation plan for the Brownfield and Groundwater GIS Program, and one action identified in that plan was the development of spatial datasets of the aquifer maps published by the U.S. Geological Survey Detailed Aquifer Mapping Program.

The USGS has mapped over 30 sand and gravel aquifers in upstate New York at the 1:24,000-scale since the 1980's. The following enhancements were made in the creation of the georeferenced map layers:

1) The surficial-geology mapping units were standardized to NYS Geological Survey nomenclature,

2) The aquifer boundaries were redrawn to include adjacent areas of permeable material hydraulically connected to the primary or principal aquifer, and

3) Adjacent maps were edgematched, preserving the original geologic interpretations from over 25 authors. An effort was made to standardize codes of adjacent and overlapping map units. However, in some cases inconsistencies in standard codes exist across edge-matched areas in order to preserve the author's original geologic interpretation.

To further increase applicability, the map layers contain original mapping units and aquifer boundaries as well as the new standardized mapping units and updated aquifer boundaries. The original published aquifer maps contain additional base and geologic information not included in these map layers. The published aquifer maps are available for download in their entirety from the USGS Publications Warehouse (http://infotrek.er.usgs.gov/pubs/)

View the Metadata (0.4 MB html) NY_Aquifer Metadata

Download the Data (21.2 MB Zip file): NY_Aquifer Mapping

Note: The NY Aquifer datasets are in a personal geodatabase that was exported to a binary XML workspace document and then compressed. To import the XML workspace document into a geodatabase, do the following steps:

1) Uncompress the Zip file.
2) Create a new personal geodatabase.
3) In the ArcCatalog tree, right-click the new geodatabase, point to import and open the Import XML Workspace Document Wizard.
4) Use the wizard to import the XML schema and data into the geodatabase.

Supporting Documentation:

Brief History of the Detailed Aquifer Mapping Program

Cooperative Publications on the Ground-Water Resources of Upstate New York