Symposium on Planning and Design of Groundwater Data Programs: Introduction

‘Planning and Design of Groundwater Data Programs’ was the subject of a symposium presented on December 8, 1970, during the National Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California. The symposium was sponsored by the Groundwater Committee, Section of Hydrology, American Geophysical Union. Over the past decade groundwater has become an increasingly more important part of the total water resources system. The increased need and use of groundwater have produced a growing awareness of the complexity of groundwater investigations and increased interest in improved management of aquifer studies, as well as in management of the groundwater resource as a whole. Economic and technical requirements have focused attention on the need for specific criteria for the planning and design of data collection networks as a part of broad groundwater resource programs. With those trends in mind, the Groundwater Committee believed the subject symposium was timely in not only presenting some scientific contemplation and research results presently available but also in stimulating future study of this subject.