ASTM International

Standard Guide for Set of Data Elements to Describe a Ground-Water Site; Part One—Additional Identification Descriptors
 N D5408

Annotation

This guide covers Part One of three guides to be used in conjunction with Practice D5254 that delineates the data desirable to describe a ground-water data collection or sampling site. This guide describes additional information beyond the minimum set of data elements that may be needed to identify a ground-water site. Part Two identifies physical descriptors, such as construction, for a site, while Part Three identifies usage descriptors, such as monitoring, for an individual ground-water site.

NOTE 1 - A ground-water site is defined as any source, location, or sampling station capable of producing water or hydrologic data from a natural stratum from below the surface of the earth. A source or facility can include a well, spring or seep, and drain or tunnel (nearly horizontal in orientation). Other sources, such as excavations, driven devices, bore holes, ponds, lakes, and sinkholes, that can be shown to be hydraulically connected to the ground water, are appropriate for the use intended.

NOTE 2—Part Two (Guide D5409) includes individual site characteristic descriptors (7 data elements), construction descriptors (56 data elements), lift descriptors (16 data elements), geologic descriptors (26 data elements), hydraulic descriptors (20 data elements), and spring descriptors (11 data elements). Part Three (Guide D5410) includes monitoring descriptors (77 data elements), irrigation descriptors (4 data elements), waste site descriptors (9 data elements), and decommissioning descriptors (8 data elements). For a list of descriptors in this guide, see Section 4.

These data elements are described in terms used by ground-water hydrologists. Standard references, such as the Glossary of Geology and various hydrogeologic professional publications, are used to determine these definitions. Many of the suggested elements and their representative codes are those established by the Water Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey and used in the National Water Information Systems computerized data base (1-9).2